Question

Leroy is building a slide for his kids. If the ladder is 5 feet tall and he wants the bottom of the slide to be 12 feet from the ladder, how long does the slide need to be?

Answer 1

We can use the Pythagorean theorem to solve this problem, which states that in a right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse (the longest side) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.

Let x be the length of the slide. Then we have a right triangle with legs of length 5 (the height of the ladder) and x, and hypotenuse of length 12 (the distance from the ladder to the bottom of the slide).

Using the Pythagorean theorem:

12^2 = 5^2 + x^2

144 = 25 + x^2

Subtracting 25 from both sides:

119 = x^2

Taking the square root of both sides:

x ≈ 10.91

Therefore, the slide needs to be about 10.91 feet long.