A painter has a 24-foot ladder that he is using to paint a house. For safety reasons, the ladder must be placed as 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?
create a right triangle with 24 as the hypotenuse and 8 as one of the legs. then use pythagorean theorem to solve. a^2 + 8^2 = 24^2. this should simply to 22.6. i hope this helps :)
