Question

Please help me... :)

Answer 1

Part 1

There are many ways to go about this, but one possibility is the following:

You are building a tree house. Your ladder is 10 feet long and the portion in the tree you're trying to get to is 8 feet off the ground. How far should the base of the ladder be from the tree so you can reach that portion?

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Part 2

The drawing is shown below. The diagram is shown in 2D to keep things as simple as possible. Adding a third dimension greatly complicates everything.

We have a right triangle, so it has a 90 degree angle as shown by the square marker. The vertical leg is 8 feet. The horizontal leg is unknown. The hypotenuse (longest side) is 10 feet long to indicate the ladder.

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Part 3

Use the pythagorean theorem to get...

a^2 + b^2 = c^2

x^2 + 8^2 = 10^2

x^2 + 64 = 100

x^2 = 100-64

x^2 = 36

x = sqrt(36)

x = 6

The base of the ladder should be 6 feet away from the tree, so that you can reach 8 feet off the ground.