how far from the base of a 10ft ladder be placed so that it reaches 8ft up the wall
You probably meant to ask:
"How far from the base should a 10ft ladder be placed so that it reaches 8ft up the wall ?"
solve for b
b^2 + 8^2 = 10^2
Since we know that the ladder is like the hypotenuse of a right triangle, we use the Pythagorous theorem. Which is what the person above used.
any Right (90 degree) triangle with height (a) and base (b) has a hypotenuse (c) where
a^2 + b^2 = c^2
To determine how far from the base of a ladder it should be placed in order to reach a certain height on a wall, you can use the Pythagorean theorem.
In this case, we have a ladder with a length of 10ft and it needs to reach a height of 8ft on the wall.
The Pythagorean theorem states that in a right triangle, the square of the length of the hypotenuse (in this case, the ladder) is equal to the sum of the squares of the lengths of the other two sides.
So, we can use this theorem to find the distance from the base of the ladder to the wall:
1. Square the ladder length: 10^2 = 100
2. Square the height the ladder needs to reach: 8^2 = 64
3. Subtract the squared height from the squared ladder length: 100 - 64 = 36
4. Take the square root of the difference to find the length of the base of the ladder: √36 = 6
Therefore, the ladder should be placed 6ft from the base of the wall to reach a height of 8ft.