Question

Emily is standing 12 feet away from a light pole. The distance between Emily to a point of tangency on the pole is 24 feet. What is the radius of the light pole?

Answer 1

It is given that Emily is 12 feet away from light pole and distance between Emily to a point of tangency on the pole is 24 feet.

So the diagram is

Here x is the radius of the light pole.

Use the Pythagoras theorem , to find x.

`24^2=12^2+x^2`
`576=144+x^2`
`x^2=576-144`
`x=\sqrt[]{432}`
`x=20.78`

Hence the radius of light pole is 20.78 feet.