Question

Jackson finds a cat stuck in a 20ft tree. Luckily he has a 25foot ladder. If the ladder leans against the tree leaving 6ft of space between, will it be long enough for Jackson to rescue the cat.

Answer 1

Hello!

This makes a triangle

The cat is 20 ft high

The triangle is 20 feet high

The is 6 ft between the ladder and the tree

The base is 6 ft long

You use the Pythagorean theorem to solve this

$a^{2} + b^{2} =c^{2}$

a and b are the base and height

put in the values you know

$6^{2} + 20^{2} = c^{2}$

square the numbers

36 + 400 = $c^{2}$

Add

436 = $c^{2}$

Take the square root of 436

20.9 = c

Since this is lower than the length of the ladder the ladder is long enough

The answer is yes

Hope this helps!