Question

Bob is washing windows at his house. He has a 16 ft. ladder and needs the ladder to reach 12 ft . up the side of the house. how far from the base of the house, to the nearest tenth of a foot, does the ladder need to placed ? use the diagram below to help you

Answer 1

We can draw the diagram as:

We have a right triangle and we have to find d.

We can write the Pythagorean theorem as:

$\begin{gathered} d^2+12^2=16^2 \\ d^2=16^2-12^2 \\ d^2=256-144 \\ d^2=112 \\ d=\sqrt[]{112}\approx10.6 \end{gathered}$

Answer: the distance from the base of the house to the ladder is 10.6 ft.