A 28 ft ladder is leaned against the side of a building and its base is 5 ft away rom the building. How far up the building will the ladder reach?

Question

A 28 ft ladder is leaned against the side of a building and its base is 5 ft away rom the building. How far up the building will the ladder reach?

Answer 1

You have to use the pythagorean theorem. The longest leg of the triangle is 28. The 2 sides are 5 and x, where x is how high up the ladder will be. 5²+ x² = 28² Can be rewritten by solving for x.. So x = sqrt(28² - 5² ) which is about 27 ft. This the answer.

Answer 2

Moises, draw yourself a sketch of this problem with a ladder leaning against the outer wall of a building. You will notice that a triangle is formed by the ladder, the wall, and the distance from the bottom of the wall to the bottom of the ladder. Label the lengths of the two sides of this triangle that you know.

This triangle is a special kind of triangle. It is a RIGHT triangle because, presumably, the angle between the wall and the ground is 90°. Thus, you can use the Pythagorean Theorem to find the length of the missing side, which is what the problem is asking.

State your answer in the form of a complete sentence and include the units. Your answer will be something like: The ladder will reach _______ up the building.