- #1
Jay9313
- 40
- 0
So I have a problem. The problem says:
A fence 8 ft tall rubs parallel to a tall building at a distance of 4 ft from the building. What is the length of the shortest ladder that will reach from the ground over the fence to the wall of the building?
I drew a picture to help, but I can't draw it on here. I drew a right triangle, it's fairly large. Halfway through the base, there's a straight line up representing the fence. I then made the hypotenuse of the entire triangle L. The wall is h.
1.I then set up a proportion. It's (x/8)=((x+4)/(h))
2.I solved the proportion for x and got 32/(h-8)
3.I then said (x+4)^2+h^2=L^2
I plugged in the x value i solved the proportion for into the above equation and got
(((4h)/(h-8))^2)+(h^2)^(1/2))=L (It might help to right this out instead of looking at it.
Now I have to take the derivative of this and set it equal to zero.. But I keep messing it up.. Can somebody show me how to do it?
I have been working and realized I can take the derivative of the Pythagorean theorem mentioned in step 3. But I still have trouble solving this. can somebody please help?
A fence 8 ft tall rubs parallel to a tall building at a distance of 4 ft from the building. What is the length of the shortest ladder that will reach from the ground over the fence to the wall of the building?
I drew a picture to help, but I can't draw it on here. I drew a right triangle, it's fairly large. Halfway through the base, there's a straight line up representing the fence. I then made the hypotenuse of the entire triangle L. The wall is h.
1.I then set up a proportion. It's (x/8)=((x+4)/(h))
2.I solved the proportion for x and got 32/(h-8)
3.I then said (x+4)^2+h^2=L^2
I plugged in the x value i solved the proportion for into the above equation and got
(((4h)/(h-8))^2)+(h^2)^(1/2))=L (It might help to right this out instead of looking at it.
Now I have to take the derivative of this and set it equal to zero.. But I keep messing it up.. Can somebody show me how to do it?
I have been working and realized I can take the derivative of the Pythagorean theorem mentioned in step 3. But I still have trouble solving this. can somebody please help?
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