A 20 meter ladder is leaning against a house.The bottom of the ladder is 15 meters away from the house. How far, to the nearest tenth, is the top of ladder from the ground?
Do I multiply 20,x 15?
I don't know how to do the problem
Since you're trying to find one leg of a right triangle, you need to use the Pythagorean Theorem. The ladder is the hypotenuse of this triangle.
a^2 + b^2 = c^2
15^2 + b^2 = 20^2
225 + b^2 = 400
b^2 = 175
b = 13.228 = 13.2 meters
To find the distance from the top of the ladder to the ground, you can use the Pythagorean theorem. The Pythagorean theorem states that in a right triangle, the square of the length 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 ladder represents the hypotenuse, the distance from the bottom of the ladder to the house represents one side, and the distance from the top of the ladder to the ground represents the other side.
Using the Pythagorean theorem, you can set up the equation as follows:
hypotenuse^2 = side1^2 + side2^2
Let's denote the distance from the top of the ladder to the ground as "x". The distance from the bottom of the ladder to the house is given as 15 meters, and the length of the ladder is given as 20 meters.
Plugging these values into the equation, we can solve for "x":
20^2 = 15^2 + x^2
400 = 225 + x^2
Subtracting 225 from both sides gives:
175 = x^2
To solve for "x", we take the square root of both sides:
√(175) = √(x^2)
Simplifying:
x ≈ 13.23
Therefore, the top of the ladder is approximately 13.23 meters away from the ground.