SOLUTION: A customer wants to make a teepee in his backyard for his children. He plans to use lengths of PVC plumbing pipe for the supports on the teepee, and he wants the teepee to be 6 fee

Algebra ->  Polynomials-and-rational-expressions -> SOLUTION: A customer wants to make a teepee in his backyard for his children. He plans to use lengths of PVC plumbing pipe for the supports on the teepee, and he wants the teepee to be 6 fee      Log On


   

Question 357380: A customer wants to make a teepee in his backyard for his children. He plans to use lengths of PVC plumbing pipe for the supports on the teepee, and he wants the teepee to be 6 feet across and 4 feet tall (see figure). How long should the PVC plumbing pipe be?
I tried to copy and paste the figure but I'm not sure if you can see it or not.
Answer by Earlsdon(6294) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
If you look at the tepee from the side you will see an isoceles triangle whose height is 4 feet and whose base is 6 feet.
If you drop a line from the apex perpendicular to the base you will have two right triangles. The height of the right triangle is 4 feet and the base will be just half of the width of the base of the isoceles triangle, or 3 feet.
You need to find the length of the hypotenuse of the right triangle.
Use:
c%5E2+=+a%5E2%2Bb%5E2 Substitute a = 3 and b = 4
c%5E2+=+9%2B16
c%5E2+=+25 Take the square root of both sides.
c+=+5
The PVC plumbing pipe should be 5 feet long.