Question

A 20-meter ladder is sliding down a vertical wall so the distance between the top of the ladder and the

ground is decreasing at 8 meters per minute.
At a certain instant, the top of the ladder is 12 meters from the ground.
What is the rate of change of the distance between the bottom of the ladder and the wall at that instant
(in meters per minute)?

Answer 1

Let:

`\begin{gathered} (x1,y1)=(20,0) \\ (x2,y2)=(x2,12) \end{gathered}`

The slope (Rate of change) is given by: