cant find answer! help please!

Question

A building is 3 ft from a 12-ft fence that surrounds the property. A worker wants to wash a window in the building 17 ft from the ground. He plans to place a ladder over the fence so it rests against the building.? He decides he should place the ladder 12 ft from the fence for stability. To the nearest tenth of a? foot, how long a ladder will he? need?

 

he will need a ____ft ladder

Answer 1

Draw a picture on a paper. First, draw a horizontal line to represent the ground. On the left side, draw a rectangle that represents the building, and to the right of it, draw a vertical line that will represent the fence. Then, draw a diagonal line from the building, touching the top of the fence, and ending at the ground.

 

At this point, you should see two right triangles; one big right triangle, and a small triangle inside of that one. Lets start labeling distances. The distance from where the ladder meets the building to where the building meets the floor is 17 ft. The height of the fence is 12 ft. The distance from where the building meets the ground to where the fence meets the ground is 3 ft. The distance from where the ladder meets the ground to where the fence meets the ground is 12 ft.

 

With these labeled values, you should be able to see that we could use the pythagorean theorem to solve for the length of the ladder. The height would be 17 ft, the width would be 15 ft (3 ft + 12 ft), and the hypotenuse would be the length of the ladder.

 

a² + b² = c²

(17)² + (15)² = c²

225 + 289 = c²

514 = c²

c = 22.7 ft

 

He will need a 22.7 ft ladder