You might think at first that he is 3 miles from his starting point, but if you think about it, that's not true. This forms a right triangle with one side of 2, the other side with 1, and the unknown distance as the hypotenuse. We can use Pythagorean's Theorem to solve this:
[tex]a^2 + b^2 = c^2[/tex]
[tex]c = \sqrt{a^2+b^2} = \sqrt{2^2+1^2} = \sqrt{5} [/tex]
This cannot be simplified anymore, so the distance John travels is [tex] \sqrt{5}[/tex] miles. You can put this into a calculator to get a value of 2.2 miles (rounding to the nearest tenth).
