Question

You have been told to replace the flag pole located in the front of your work office. The problem is that no one knows how tall it is. You were able to find information stating that the rope used to raise the flag on a pole is 20 feet long. When the flag is raised, the string is attached to the ground at a distance that is 5 feet from the base of the pole. How tall is the flag pole? Round to the nearest whole number. You must set up an equation and solve.

Answer 1

You are given the hypotenuse and one leg. You are trying to solve for the other leg. The hypotenuse would be the length of the string, 20 feet and the leg would be how far the string is tied from the base of the pole, 5 feet. Thus you can use the Pythagorean theorem to say 20^2=5^2+P^2 where P is how tall the pole is.
400=25+P^2
375=P^2
sqrt(375)=P
5sqrt(15)=P