Suppose a railroad rail is 5 kilometers and it expands on a hot day by 20 centimeters in length. How many meters would the center raise above the ground?

4 centimeters ... you're welcome

The length of the railroad is 1km and it expands 10cm. To solve this problem, you have to create a right triangle. You can do this by cutting everything in half. Your hypotenuse will be 1/2km + 5cm, one of the legs will be 1/2km. To make everything simple, I converted everything into meters. So you will have 500m +.05m as the hypotenuse and 500m as one of the legs. Use the Pythagorean theorem to solve for the other leg. Do not round your answer. My teacher emailed me a hint to answering the question. She cahnged everything to meters.

use Pythagoras theorem to solve for the other leg. that is your answer. Your teacher spelled it out for you.