SOLUTION: I am not good at all with word problems and need some help The base of a ladder is 10 ft away from the wall. The top of the ladder is 11 ft from the floor. Find the length o

Algebra.Com
Question 91231: I am not good at all with word problems and need some help


The base of a ladder is 10 ft away from the wall. The top of the ladder is 11 ft from the floor. Find the length of the ladder to the nearest thousandth.
Thamks a million
Answer by jim_thompson5910(35256)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
We basically have this triangle set up:



Since we can see that the triangle has legs of 11 and 10 with a hypotenuse of c, we can use Pythagoreans theorem to find the unknown side.


Pythagoreans theorem:

where a and b are the legs of the triangle and c is the hypotenuse



Plug in a=11, b=10, and c=c. Now lets solve for c


Square each individual term



Combine like terms


Take the square root of both sides


So c approximates to...


Which means our answer is


which is to the nearest thousandth
RELATED QUESTIONS

Ok, I'm not good at word problems and I need a little help if possible. A ladder is... (answered by checkley75)
I really need help with this question. The base of an 18-ft ladder is 4 ft away from a... (answered by beccadancer15)
The base of a ladder is 12 feet away from the wall. The top of the ladder is 13 feet from (answered by stanbon)
The base of a 15-ft ladder is 5 feet away from a wall. How far above the floor is the... (answered by Nate)
The base of a ladder is 10 ft away from the wall. The top of the ladder is 11 ft from the (answered by checkley77)
I need some help with this one. Could someone show me step by step how to figure this one (answered by Flake,tutorcecilia)
I need help with this problem please. The answer is suppose to be to the nearest... (answered by jim_thompson5910)
the base of a 15ft ladder is 8 ft away from the wall. How far above the floor is the top (answered by Earlsdon)
Construction. The base of a 15-ft ladder is 5-ft away from a wall. How far above the... (answered by jim_thompson5910)