A 7ft ladder is propped up against a tree. If the base of the ladder is 4ft from the bottom of the tree how high will the tree house be off the ground?

Question

this quest is dealing with right angles and like what's the leg and what's the hypotenuse I think I did it right but idk

 

Answer 1

In this case, we have a right triangle with a base of 4 feet, and an hypotenuse of 7 feet.

 

Using the Pythagorean theorem, we can calculate height of the vertical leg. The theorem is a² + b² = c², where c is the hypotenuse.

 

In this case, 4² + b² = c², which becomes 16 + b² = 49

 

 

We then take the square root of  33 to get b, which is ≅ 5.7 feet