Question

Suppose two telephone poles are 60 ft apart and the length of the wire between the poles is 61 ft. if the lowest point of the wire must be 24 ft above the ground, how high up on each pole should the wire be attached

Answer 1

We have a right angled triangle   with base 60 and hypotenuse 61

so opposite side = sqrt (61^2 - 60^2)  =   sqrt121 = 11 feet

so the wire should be 24 feet high on one pole and 35 feet high on the other.