Question

The window of a burning building is 24 meters above ground .The base of a ladder is placed 10 meters from the building . How long must the ladder be to reach the window?

Answer 1

The ladder would need to be 26 feet long.

Explanation:

The ladder would create a right triangle with the wall of the building.
The two legs of the right triangle would be the 24 ft of the wall and the 10 ft on the ground. The missing measure would be the ladder which would form the hypotenuese of the triangle.

We can use the Pythagorean Theorem to solve for the missing measure.

`a^2 + b^2 = c^2`

`10^2 + 24^2 = c^2`

`100 + 576 = c^2`

`676 = c^2`

`sqrt676 = c`

`26 = c`

The ladder would need to be 26 feet long.