Question

Ava is in a hot air balloon that has just taken off and is floating above its launching point. Mary is standing on the ground 4 meter away from the launching point. If ava and mary are 5 meters apart, how high up is ava ?

Answer 1

Ava's altitude is 3 meters.

Explanation:

The position of Ava and Mary can be described by the sides of a right angled triangle. Let Ava's altitude be represented by x.

So that applying the Pythagoras theorem, we have;

`/hyp/^(2)` =
`/Adj 1/^(2)` +
`/Adj 2/^(2)`

`5^(2)` =
`4^(2)` +
`x^(2)`

25 = 16 +
`x^(2)`

`x^(2)` = 25 - 16

= 9

x =
`√(9)`

= 3

x = 3 meters

Thus, Ava's altitude is 3 meters.