a right cone has a slant height of 17 feet and the diameter of the base is 16 feet. what is the height h of the cone ?

Answer 1

The equation to find the height of a cone is similar to that of a triangle; the height of the cone, radius of the base, and slant height form a right triangle. It may help you to draw a cone and properly label each component based on the word problem. Your slant height would be your hypotenuse, since its opposite the right angle of the "triangle" that you can draw from the cone. Knowing this, apply the Pythagorean theorem to solve for the height: a² + b² = c²

You'll have to rearrange the equation to solve for the unknown height: Hint: you know at least c and a.

Be careful that the problem gives you diameter instead of radius, so you will have to take that into consideration (radius is distance from center of a circle to any edge, where the diameter is edge to edge passing through the middle of the circle)