A 12 ft. ladder leaning against a wall has its base 4 ft. from the wall. Find the sine and the cosine of the angle that the ladder makes with the ground.

Question

anonymous · Answer

|dw:1371654918637:dw|

anonymous · Answer

you need the other side of the triangle, which you find via pythagoras

anonymous · Answer

it is $\sqrt{12^2-4^2}$
once you find it, find the sine and cosine using the appropriate ratios

anonymous · Answer

I just typed that formula and the answer I got is -4. :(

anonymous · Answer

some mistake there

anonymous · Answer

$\sqrt{1^2-4^2}=\sqrt{144-16}=\sqrt{128}$

radar · Answer

Now that you have all three side you can solve.
Note that you can solve for the cosine with the facts given:
Cos x= 4/12= 1/3
You can now solve for the sine using the identity :|dw:1371656322394:dw|