SOLUTION: A 28 ft. ladder is leaning halfway up a 40 foot building. How far from the building should ladder be placed? (Round answer to the nearest foot)

Question 360748: A 28 ft. ladder is leaning halfway up a 40 foot building. How far from the building should ladder be placed? (Round answer to the nearest foot)
Answer by jim_thompson5910(35256) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
We basically have this triangle set up:

To find the unknown length, we need to use the Pythagorean Theorem.

Remember, the Pythagorean Theorem is where "a" and "b" are the legs of a triangle and "c" is the hypotenuse.

Since the legs are and this means that and

Also, since the hypotenuse is , this means that .

Start with the Pythagorean theorem.

Plug in , ,

Square to get .

Square to get .

Subtract from both sides.

Combine like terms.

Take the square root of both sides. Note: only the positive square root is considered (since a negative length doesn't make sense).

Simplify the square root.

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Answer:

So the solution is which approximates to .

So the ladder should be placed approximately 20 ft from the building (rounded to the nearest foot).

If you need more help, email me at jim_thompson5910@hotmail.com

Also, feel free to check out my tutoring website

Jim
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