Question

A ladder is leaning against a brick wall so that the top of the ladder is even with the top of the wall. If you know that the height of the wall is 20 ft and the distance from the bottom of the ladder to the bottom of the wall is 16 ft less than the length of the ladder, how long is the ladder?

The ladder is ft long.

Answer 1

Answer: the top of the ladder is at 24 feet from the ground

Explanation:

Use the Pythagorean theorem to solve for the unknown, since we notice that the ladder is the hypotenuse of a right angle triangle formed by the horizontal distance from the wall to the base of the ladder, and the height of the top of the ladder against the wall. We need to find one of the triangle's sides given its hypotenuse and the other side, so we use the formula: