Question

Your friends have locked themselves out of the house, and they need your help to get back in. They have a 20 foot long ladder, and there is an open window 16 feet above the ground. How far from the wall should you hold the base of the ladder while they climb back in?

Answer 1

Given:

where;

`\begin{gathered} l=20ft \\ h=16ft \end{gathered}`

A right triangle can be extracted from the image above,

Applying the Pythagoras theorem to the right triangle,

`\begin{gathered} \text{hypotenuse}^2=\text{opposite}^2+\text{adjacent}^2 \\ \\ \text{Thus,} \\ l^2=h^2+w^2 \end{gathered}`

To find w, substitute the known values into the formula,

Therefore, the distance from the wall that the base of the ladder should be while they climb back in is 12 feet.

Hence, option D is the correct answer.