Question

John puts the base of a 15 foot ladder 5 feet from the wall of his house. How far up the wall does the ladder reach

Answer 1

≈ 14 feet

Explanation:

this situation creates a right triangle with the ladder being the hypotenuse and legs distance from base of ladder and height of ladder (h) up the wall

using Pythagoras' identity in the right triangle.

the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides, that is

h² + 5² = 15²

h² + 25 = 225 ( subtract 25 from both sides )

h² = 200 ( take square root of both sides )

h =
`√(200)` ≈ 14 feet ( to the nearest foot )