Answer:
Explanation:
I probalby am not reading the question correctly, but it seems be be asking the distance between Myrna's fingertip (18 feet above the ground!) and the top of the 27' foot flagploe. We are not told where Myrna is standing, nor how she got her fingertip 18 feet high. Since we are asked for a diagram, I did the best I could, not knowing much about Myrna other than she must be tall. On her behalf, I assumed Myrna was directly under the flagpoe. As shown in the attached diagram, her fingertip is 9 feet below the top of the flagpole.
If the 24 foot wire is stretched all the way (i.e., it takes 24 feet to reach Myrna's fingertip), then she is not standing directly below the flagpole. But this isn't clear in the problem. In any event, if the question is how far she is from the very top of the flagpole from where she is standing, it would be the 24 foot lenght of the wire connecting her to the top of the flagpole. If the question just wants the vertical distance, then it is 9 feet.
If she is standing away from the flagpole, then a diagram would appear roughly as follows:
x
x s
x 27' s 24'
x s
x ----------z-------------- y
x y
x y 18'
x ----------z-------------- y
flagpole Myrna
The distance z is calculated using the Pythagorean Theorem in the top triangle. The left side is (27'-18') or 9'. The hypotenuse is 24'.
z^2 + 9^2 = 24^2
z = 22.2 feet.