How long a ladder must you have to reach the top of a 15-foot wall if the bottom of the ladder is placed 4 feet from the base of the wall? round to the nearest tenth of a foot. 14.5 ft 15.5 ft 17.0 ft 19.0 ft

Answer with Step-by-step explanation:

The problem could be modeled as a right angled triangle with height as the height of wall, base of triangle to be the distance between ladder and wall and hypotenuse to be the length of ladder

Now, Using the Pythagoras theorem

Hypotenuse²= Base²+Height²

Hypotenuse²= 4²+15²

                     = 16+225

                     = 241

Hypotenuse=

                   = 15.52 ft

Hence, Length of ladder to nearest tenth is:

15.5 ft