A ladder 20 meters long leans against a wall. If the bottom of the ladder is being pushed towards the wall at tge rate of 20 m/min.

Question

A ladder 20 meters long leans against a wall. If the bottom of the ladder is being pushed towards the wall at tge rate of 20 m/min, how fast is tge top of the ladder moving up the wall when the top of the ladder is 6 meters from the ground?

Answer 1

Pink, you have a "pythagorean related rates" problem with

x²+y²=20²

^{Take the derivative of both sides with respect to "time" and then fill in the information :}

^{dx/dt =}

^{when y = 6, x=?}

^{and then the only remaining variable will be dy/dt}

^{Hope this helps--Andrew F.}