Question

The baseball bat question

the seventh inning stretch company has created a new baseball that will improve your chances of hitting a home run.

the 36-inch bat is only available online. to protect the bat, it must be shipped so the handle of the bat is in one corner

of the box and the top portion of the bat touches the opposite diagonal corner.


a. the shipping box has a length of 30 inches and a height of 6 inches. how wide should the box be to fit

the 36-inch bat?

show and explain your work.

Answer 1

Using the 3D Pythagorean theorem, we need the length of the diagonal to be 36 inches.

Let the width of the box be
`w`. Then,

`√(30^2 +6^2+w^2)=36\\\\30^2+6^2+w^2=36^2\\\\w^2=36^2-30^2-6^2\\ \\ w=√(36^2-30^2-6^2)\\\\w=6√(10) \text{ in}`