SOLUTION: I have already answered the question, I just want to check my work. A piece of wire measuring 20 feet is attached to a telephone pole as a guy wire. The distance along the ground

Question 374277: I have already answered the question, I just want to check my work.
A piece of wire measuring 20 feet is attached to a telephone pole as a guy wire. The distance along the ground from the bottom of the pole to the end of the wire is 4 feet greater than the height where the wire is attached to the pole. How far up the pole does the guy wire reach?
x^2+(x+4)^2=20^2
x=12
Answer by sophxmai(62) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Yes, this is correct.

The guy wire, the telephone phone and the ground form a right-angled triangle.
Your measurements are x, x+4, and 20.
To solve for x, you could use the Pythagorean Theorem, .

Let a=x
Let b=x+4
Let c=20

First, plug in the values for a, b and c, and then simplify.

From here, solve for x by either factoring, or using the quadratic formula (I'm going to use the quadratic formula).

or
x=12 or -16

Now, plug in the values of x into the original formula (})

144+256=400
400=400

256+144=400
400=400

By just looking at the numbers, you could conclude that both values of x could be correct. However, we have to look back to our word problem.
The measurement of the telephone pole is x.
Our values of x are 12 and -16.
If we substitute the values of x in,
only x=12 makes sense,
because a telephone pole with height -16 is impossible unless you're measuring from a reference point 16ft above one end of it.

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