two poles 25m and 20m stand upright in a field. the distance between two poles is 12m. find the dintance between their tops.
The distance is the hypotenuse of a right angle triangle.
a^2 + b^2 = c^2
5^2 + 12^2 = c^2
Solve for c
Right
13
To find the distance between the tops of the two poles, you can use the Pythagorean theorem. The Pythagorean theorem states that in a right-angled triangle, the square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.
In this case, the two poles and the distance between them form a right-angled triangle. Let's label the distance between the tops of the poles as 'x'. We can draw the following diagram to represent the situation:
x
+---------------+
| |
| 12m |
| |
+---------------+
We have one side of the triangle with length 12m. The two other sides are the heights of the poles, 25m and 20m. We'll label the height of the first pole as 'a' (25m) and the height of the second pole as 'b' (20m). Now we can apply the Pythagorean theorem:
x^2 = a^2 + b^2
Substituting the known values:
x^2 = 25^2 + 20^2
x^2 = 625 + 400
x^2 = 1025
To find the value of x, we take the square root of both sides:
x = √1025
x ≈ 32.02m
Therefore, the distance between the tops of the two poles is approximately 32.02 meters.