Question

an electric pole has a support cable that is attached to the pole 20 ft from the ground. the cable is anchored from the ground 10 ft from the base of the pole. How long is the cable? round to the nearest tenth.

Answer 1

[AI-generated answer — Bot GPT 3.5]

To solve this problem, we can use the Pythagorean theorem. According to the theorem, in a right triangle, the square of the length of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.

In this case, the pole, support cable, and anchored cable form a right triangle. The length of the pole is 20 ft and the distance from the base of the pole to the anchor point is 10 ft. Let's assume the length of the cable is "x".

So, according to the Pythagorean theorem: x^2 = 10^2 + 20^2

Simplifying: x^2 = 100 + 400

x^2 = 500

Taking the square root of both sides, we get: x = √500 ≈ 22.36 ft

Therefore, the length of the cable is approximately 22.36 feet when rounded to the nearest tenth.