SOLUTION: I submitted this before but my question got cut off somehow but here it is again. a 40 foot ladder is leaning against a building so that the distance from the bottom of the lad

Question 1032284: I submitted this before but my question got cut off somehow but here it is again.
a 40 foot ladder is leaning against a building so that the distance from the bottom of the ladder to the building is 8 feet more than the distance the ladder reaches up the building. find how far up the building the ladder reaches. I think the hypotenuse is 40 and one leg is x+8 but I'm not too sure.
Thank you for the help.

Answer by ikleyn(52788) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.

Let x = how far up the building the ladder reaches (vertical leg).
Then the other leg is (x+8).

The Pythagorean equation is 

 = .

 = ,

 = ,

(x-24)*(x+32) = 0,

The only positive root is x = 24.

Check.  = .

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