a 16 ft flag post is perpendicular to the ground.

Question

a 16ft flag post is perpendicular to the ground. for support, a wire is attached to the top of the pole. the other end of the wire is is staked to the ground a distance of 12 ft from the base of the pole. what is the length of the wire in ft

Answer 1

So if we consider the length of the flag pole as our 'a' term, the wire's distance from the bottom of the pole as our 'b' term, we can calculate our 'c' term, the hypotenuse, using the Pythagorean theorem.

a^2 + b^2 = c^2

16 feet squared is 256 feet and

12 feet squared is 144 feet.

If we add those together, we'll get 400 feet. The square root of 400 feet is the length of the wire in feet, our answer.

Hope this helps!