Question

If you place a 40 foot ladder against the top of a 24 foot building how many feet will the bottom of the ladder be from the bottom of the building ?

Answer 1

32 feet will the bottom of the ladder be from the bottom of the building.

Explanation:

Given:

Height of ladder = 40 feet.

Height of building = 24 feet.

Now, to find the distance from the bottom of the ladder to the bottom of the building.

So, as illustrated in figure below:

Now, we use pythagorean theorem to solve it:

`AB^2+BC^2=AC^2`

`24^+BC^2=40^2.`

`576+BC^2=1600`

Subtracting both sides from 576 we get:

`BC^2=1024`

Using square root on both sides we get:

`BC=32\ feet.`

Therefore, 32 feet will the bottom of the ladder be from the bottom of the building.