Question

Please help IDK how to do this!

Answer 1

For this problem you must do Pythagorean theorem:

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

In this example 10ft is c and 7ft is a (or it could be b, and you'll be solving for a instead of b. It's the same thing, since a and b are both legs)

Plug what you know into the equation:

$7^{2} +b^{2} = 10^{2}$

49 +b^{2} = 100

Bring 49 to the right side by subtracting it:

b^{2} = 51

Now you still must isolate b. The opposite of squaring is taking the square root so take the square root of both sides to cancel it from the left side:

$b =\sqrt{51}$

b = 7.1414

b ≈ 7 ft

Hope this helped!