Answer:
[tex]\huge\boxed{7.79 \ \text{feet}}[/tex]
Step-by-step explanation:
We know that we have a 9 foot long ladder resting upon a wall, with an unknown height, but the ladder is 4.5 feet away from the wall.
This can be represented as a triangle, where x is the unknown side.
|\
| \
x | \ 9
| \
| \
|_____\
4.5
We can use The Pythagorean Theorem to find the value of x. The theorem states that [tex]a^2+b^2=c^2[/tex], where a and b are the lengths of the legs and c is the length of the hypotenuse.
However, we already know the hypotenuse and one leg. Therefore we can substitute inside the equation to find the missing value.
[tex]a^2 + 4.5^2 = 9^2\\\\a^2 + 20.25 = 81\\\\a^2 = 60.75\\\\a \approx 7.79[/tex]
Hope this helped!
