Question

Firefighters are sent to an apartment building to put out a fire. They are trying to get in a window that is 26.3 feet off the ground. If the bottom of the ladder is 8.4 feet away from the building, about how long does the ladder need to be to reach the window?

Answer 1

Explanation:

Pythagoras

c² = a² + b²

with c being the Hypotenuse (the side opposite of the right angle), which is in our case here exactly the ladder itself.

ladder² = 26.3² + 8.4² = 691.69 + 70.56 = 762.25

ladder = 27.60887538... ft

do you need to round the result ? like round to up to the next whole number ? then the answer would be : the ladder needs to be 28 ft long.