First, create a proportion to evaluate the vertical distance.
≈ 16 feet
Practice makes perfect
We are given that the ratio of the vertical distance to the horizontal distance covered by a slide should not be more than about 4:7, and the horizontal distance is 14 feet.
The vertical distance/The horizontal distance= 4/7
In our exercise, we are asked to evaluate the length of the slide. Our first step will be to find the vertical distance of the slide, let's call it v. To do this, we can create a proportion using the given ratio.
4/7=v/14Let's solve this proportion using cross multiplication.
The vertical distance of the slide is 8 feet. Now, let's look at the picture. Let s represents the length of the slide.
Since the distances and the slide create a right triangle, we can find the length of the slide using the Pythagorean Theorem. According to this theorem, the sum of the squared legs of a right triangle is equal to its squared hypotenuse.
14^2+8^2=s^2
Let's solve the above equation for s. Notice that, as s is a positive number representing distance, we will only consider a positive case when taking a square root of s^2.
