Question

Two flag poles in front of the Court House are 12 ft tall. The distance from the top of one pole to the base of the other as shown in the diagram is 20 ft. What is the distance between the two flag poles?

Answer 1

To calculate this you can use the Pythagorean Theorem, so if one pole is the height, the distance from top of one to bottom of other is hypotenuse, you can solve for the base by taking the square root of (20^2 - 12^2) or 16 which is the answer.