Question

Damon is building a slide for his kids. The ladder is 3 meters tall and the slide is 5 meters long. What is the distance between the ladder and the bottom of the slide? Meters

Answer 1

The distance between the ladder and the slide is 4 meters.

Explanation:

We are given the following in the question:

Length of ladder = 3 meter

Length of slide = 5 meter

Now, the ladder, slide and distance between ladder and slide forms a right angled triangle.

Thus, by Pythagoras theorem,

• The sum of square of sides of of a right angled triangle is equal to the square of hypotenuse.

The slide forms the hypotenuse of the triangle. Let x meters be the distance between the slide and ladder.

Thus, we can write:

`3^2 + x^2 = 5^2\\0 + x^2 = 25\\x^ =16\\x = 4`

Thus, the distance between the ladder and the slide is 4 meters.