# Slanted sides of a tent are 11 feet long each and the bottom of the tent is 12 feet across. What is the tallest point of the tent?

Relevance
• Anonymous
2 years ago

You have a right angled triangle made up of a 11 foot hypotenuse and a base of 6 feet (the tent pole would be in the middle of 12 feet).

Call the height of the tent pole x

Use Pythagoras. The square on the hypotenuse = sum of squares on the other two sides:

x^2 + 6^2 = 11^2

x^2 + 36 = 121

x^2 = 85

x = 9.22 feet

• 2 years ago

You're going to have to use a2 + b2 = c2

The slanted sides of the tent that are 11 feet will be "c"

The bottom is 12 feet across. The shape of the tent forms 2 right triangles, back to back.

Drop a vertical line down the middle making 2 equal halves. Each half is a right triangle.

"b" for the formula will be 6, as 6 is one-half of 12.

now a2 + 6^2 = 11^2

that's a2 + 36 = 121

a2 = 85

To find "a" , take the square root of both sides, so the answer is the square root of 85

That equals 9.22

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .*

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *. |. .*

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .* . . | . . .*

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *. . . . |. . . . .*

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .*. . . . . .|. . . . . . *

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *-----------.|------------*

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6ft. . . . . .6ft

• 2 years ago

sqrt [ 11 squared plus (half of 12) squared] --- drawing the vertical on a diagram makes clear that it is a right triangle and thus the a2 + b2 = c2 formula applies

• ?
Lv 7
2 years ago

Slanted sides of a tent are 11 feet long each

and the bottom of the tent is 12 feet across.

What is the tallest point of the tent?

We will use the Pythagorean theorem to solve this.

It states that the sum of the squares of the legs of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse; algebraically,

a² + b² = c²

The height splits the base in two, giving us a leg of 6.  The hypotenuse is 11.  This gives us:

6² + b² = 11²

36 + b² = 121

Subtract 36 from each side:

36 + b² - 36 = 121 - 36

b² = 85

Take the square root of each side:

√b² = √85 = 9.22