A taut telephone wire extends from the top of a 24-foot tall telephone pole to a stake in the ground 10 feet away. A bug crawled from the stake in the ground up the wire to the top of the telephone pole. Then the bug crawled down to the bottom of the pole and back to the stake. How far did the bug crawl?

Question

Ariel Ayala

Mathematics

16 March, 08:13

A taut telephone wire extends from the top of a 24-foot tall telephone pole to a stake in the ground 10 feet away. A bug crawled from the stake in the ground up the wire to the top of the telephone pole. Then the bug crawled down to the bottom of the pole and back to the stake. How far did the bug crawl?

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Answers (1)

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Samantha Jensen · Answer 1

The distance the bug crawled will be estimated using the length of the wire which is given by Pythagorean theorem

c^2=a^2+b^2

a=24, b=10

thus

c^2=24^2+10^2

c^2=576+100

c^2=676

thus

c=26 ft

since the spider crawled the distance twice, total distance the spider crawled was:

26*2=52 ft