Camila needs to fix the window on the front of her house. The bottom window is 16 feet from the ground. She only has a 20 feet ladder. How far from the base of the house should she set the ladder exactly so she can fix the bottom window?

Answer 1

To figure out how far from the base of the house Camila should set the ladder, we need to use the Pythagorean theorem. The ladder acts as the hypotenuse of a right triangle, with the ground distance as one leg and the height of the window as the other leg.

Let's label the distance from the base of the house to the ladder as 'x'. Using the Pythagorean theorem, we can write the equation: x^2 + 16^2 = 20^2.

Simplifying this equation:
x^2 + 256 = 400
x^2 = 400 - 256
x^2 = 144.

Taking the square root of both sides of the equation, we find that x = 12.

Therefore, Camila should set the ladder 12 feet from the base of the house to fix the window.