Question

Rob is building a skateboarding ramp by propping the end of a piece of wood on a cinder block. If the ramp begins 72 centimeters from the block and the block is 30 centimeters tall, how long is the piece of wood?

Answer 1

The length of the piece of wood can be found using the Pythagorean theorem. The ramp is the hypotenuse of a right triangle with one leg being the height of the cinder block (30 cm) and the other leg being the distance from the block to where the ramp begins (72 cm). So, the length of the piece of wood is
`√(30² + 72²) = √(900 + 5184) = √(6084) = 78 cm.`

Explanation: