Question

If you place a 36 foot ladder against the top of a building and the bottom of the ladder is 32 feet from the bottom of the building how tall is the building round to the nearest tenth of a foot

Answer 1

height = 16.5 feet

Explanation:

Givens

Start by drawing a right angle triangle. The hypotenuse is 36 and the side adjacent to where the ladder meets the ground is the adjacent side. The tallest part of the building is found from the Pythagorean Theorem.

Givens

Hypotenuse = 36

Adjacent = 32

Height = ?

Formula

a^2 + b^2 = c^2

c is the ladder length

a = 32

b = ?

Solution

32^2 + b^2 = 36^2

1024 + b^2 = 1296 Subtract 1024 from both sides

b^2 = 1296-1024

b^2 = 272 Take the square root of both sides.

sqrt(b^2) = sqrt(272)

b = 16.49