SOLUTION: The base of a ladder is 10 feet away from the wall. The top of the ladder is 11 feet from the floor. Find the length of the ladder to the nearest thousandth.

You can put this solution on YOUR website!
If you were to sketch a diagram of this situation, you would see a picture of a right triangle whose base is the distance of the base of the ladder from the wall (10 ft.) and whose height is the distance from the top of the ladder to the floor (11 ft.). The ladder itself forms the hypotenuse of this right triangle and you are being asked to find its length.
Remember the Pythagorean theorem? In any right triangle, the sum of the squares of the lengths of the two sides is equal to the square of the length of the hypotenuse. where c is the length of the hypotenuse (ladder).


Take the square root of both sides.

feet, to the nearest thousandth.

You can put this solution on YOUR website!

The base of a ladder is 10 feet 
away from the wall. The top of 
the ladder is 11 feet from the 
floor. Find the length of the 
ladder to the nearest thousandth.

     /|
    / | 
 x /  |ll'
  /   |
 /    |
/ 10' |
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

a = 10, b = 11, c = x = ?

c² = a² + b²

x² = 10² + 11²

x² = 100 + 121

x² = 221
     ___
x = Ö221 = 14.86606875 or 14.866
to the nearest thousandth of a foot.

Edwin