Question

The length of the ladder needs to be ____ ft

Answer 1

Given:

The height of the spotlight from the ground is 30 feet.

The distance between the ladder and the house is 16 feet

Let x be the length of the ladder.

Using Pythagorean theorem to find the length of the ladder.

`x^2=30^2+16^2`

`x^2=900+256`

`x^2=1156`

Taking sqaure root on both sides, we get

`x=\sqrt[]{1156}`
`x=34`

Hence the length of the ladder is 34 feet.