a painter has a 24-foot ladder that he is using to paint a house for safety reasons, the ladder must be placed at least 8 feet from the base of the side of the house. to the nearest tenth of a foot. How high can the ladder safely reach?
this is a pythagorean theorem problem. 24 is the whole ladder, and if you draw it out, is a hypotenuse. 8 is a leg. [tex] a^{2} + b^{2} = c^{2} [/tex]. so 8^2 + b^2 = 24^2
