Question

If a roof is 24 feet high and if you leaned a 26 foot ladder against the side of a building how far away from the building is the base of a ladder to reach the roof

Answer 1

The distance between the base of the ladder and the building is 10 ft

Explanation:

Here, we want to calculate the distance between the foot of the ladder and the building

To get this, we need to have a pictorial representation. Please check the attachment for this

From the pictorial representation, we can see a right angled triangle with a hypotenuse of 26 feet and the other side being 24 feet. We now need to get the third side of this triangle which represents the distance we want.

Mathematically, we can calculate the distance using Pythagoras’ theorem which states that the square of the length of the hypotenuse is equal the sum of the squares of the two other sides of the triangle.

Let the distance we are looking for be D

26^2 = 24^2 + D^2

D^2 = 26^2 - 24^2

D^2 = 100

D^2 = 10^2

D = 10 feet

Answer 2

Answer: 35.4 feet.

Explanation:

Given data:

Height of the roof = 24 feet

Height of the ladder = 26 foot

Solution:

c^2 = a^2 + b^2

a = 24

b = 26

c^2 = 24^2 + 26^2

c = √576 + 676

c = √1252

c = 35.4 feet

The foot of the ladder is 35.4 foot away from the top of the ladder.