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put this solution on YOUR website!A 12-foot ladder is leaning across a fence and is touching a higher wall located 3 feet behind the fence. The ladder makes an angle of 60 degrees with the ground.
:
If you draw this you can see that the ladder, ground, and building form a right
triangle. The ladder is the hypotenuse and we know the angle with the ground
to be 60 degrees.
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Cosine = side adjacent (ground) / hypotenuse, let g = ground
:
Cos(60) =
:
.5 =
:
g = 12 * .5
:
g = 6 ft from the base to the building
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Find the distance from the base of the ladder to the bottom of the fence.
That would be 6 - 3 = 3 ft
