June 2022
Problem of the Month

Ladder Problem
by Benjamin Banneker

Suppose a ladder 60 feet long is placed in a street so as to reach a window on one side 37 feet high.
Without moving the bottom of the ladder, it will reach another window on the other side of the street which is 23 feet high.

How wide is the street?

Solution:

The width of the street is approximately 102.65 feet across.

The diagram below shows that we can find the width of the street by applying the Pythagorean theorem twice to find the distances from the bottom of the ladder to the sides of the street and then adding the distances together.





So, the width of the street is 47.233 + 55.4166 = 102.65 feet

Correctly solved by:

1. Colin (Yowie) Bowey	Beechworth, Victoria, Australia
2. Davit Banana	Istanbul, Turkey
3. Calvin Fortson     Parker Cavanna     David Austin     Julene Gilmore	Hinsdale High School, Hinsdale, New Hampshire
4. Aayan Shah	Lalitpur City, Nepal
5. Brijesh Dave	Mumbai City, Maharashtra, India
6. Dr. Hari Kishan	D.N. College, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India
7. Ritwik Chaudhuri	Santiniketan, West Bengal, India

Send any comments or questions to: David Pleacher