Question

A painter leans a 20-ft ladder against a building. The base of the ladder is 12 ft from the building. To the nearest foot, how high on the building does the ladder reach?

Answer 1

the ladder would reach 16 feet on the building.
Pythagorean theorem helps find this answer.

Answer 2

The height of the building is 16 ft.

Explanation:

It is given that a painter leans a 20-ft ladder against a building. The base of the ladder is 12 ft from the building.

It means the base of the right angled triangle is 12 ft and the hypotenuse is 20 ft.

Let the height of the building be x.

Using Pythagoras theorem,

`hypotenuse^2=base^2+perpendicular^2`

`(200)^2=(12)^2+x^2`

`x^2=400-144`

`x^2=256`

Taking square root both sides.

`x=√(256)`

`x=16`

Therefore the height of the building is 16 ft.