Question

Christina is building a slide for her kids. The ladder is 4 feet tall and the slide is 9 feet long. What is the distance between the ladder and the bottom of the slide? If necessary, round to the nearest tenth.​

Answer 1

Answer: 8.1ft

Step-by-step explanation:

It may help to draw it out but for this question you would have to use pythagoras' theorem.

The formula for the shorter side is a²=c²-b²

The height of this triangle is 4ft (b) and the hypotenuse (the diagonal that stretches from the top to the bottom) is 9ft (c).

When we put the numbers in the formula you get a²=9²-4²

9²=81

4²=16

a²=81-16

a²=65

Then because we want to find a on it's own you would have to square root 65 which is 8.1 (to the nearest tenth)