SOLUTION: I need some help with this one. Could someone show me step by step how to figure this one out? Thank You. The base of a ladder is 11 feet away from the wall. The top of the ladder

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Question 86752: I need some help with this one. Could someone show me step by step how to figure this one out? Thank You.
The base of a ladder is 11 feet away from the wall. The top of the ladder is 20 feet from the floor. Find the length of the ladder to the nearest thousandth.
Found 2 solutions by Flake, tutorcecilia:
Answer by Flake(45) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
A visual of the problem can help with these problems
---Step#1: Draw a visual (see below)

Imagine the slanted line is the ladder leaning a wall.
Notice it form a right triangle.
For right triangle the length of each side is governed by

----Step#: Find the lenght of the ladder.
Since your ladder form a right triangle, we can use the equation above.
Let "a" be the "base" of the triangle, which is 11 feet from the wall.
Let "b" be the "height" of the triangle, which is 20 feet from the ground
"c" will be your ladder length.
********Don't foreget to do **************

Answer by tutorcecilia(2152) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Use the Pythagorean Theorem to solve:
=
Base = a
Side=b
Hypotenuse=c
.
= [plug-in the values and solve for the c-term]
=
121+ 400 =
521 =
= [take the square root of both sides in order to solve for the c-term]
.
22.825=c
.
Check by plugging all of the values back into the Pythagorean Theorem and solve