A 19 foot ladder is leaning against a wall the base of the ladder is 8 ft from the wall how high up the wall does the ladder reach

Answer 1

Sounds like a right triangle, with a hypotenuse of 19 ft and a base of 8 ft so you need to use the Pythagorean Theorem to calculate the height.

a² + b² = c²

Where for this situation

c = 19

b = 8

a = the height

Need to rearrange the equation to find the missing side

We start by subtracting b² from both sides of the equation

a² = c² - b²

Take the square root (SQRT) of this to find a, the height.

a =SQRT( c² - b²)

Just plug in the numbers give it a try.

I got 17. 23 ft for the height

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