Posted by jennifer on Thursday, September 25, 2008 at 10:22am.
I must assume that the wire's base is attached at some distance from the bottom of the tower, like a "guy-wire".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy-wire.
Let the tower's height be H and the length of the wire be L = 20.
Use the Pythagorean theorem:
20^2 = H^2 + (H-4)^2
and solve for H.
400 = 2 H^2 -8H + 16
H^2 -4H -192
(H-16)(H+12) = 0
Take the positive root, H = 16 feet.
The tower's base is sqrt (20^2 - 16^2) = 12 feet from where the cable touches the ground.
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