Question

The wall of a building makes a right angle with the ground. A ladder is leaned against the wall. When the side view of the ladder and building is placed on a coordinate grid where every line represents 1 foot, the coordinates of the bottom of the wall are (0,0) and the coordinates of the base of the ladder are (16,0). If the ladder is 20 feet long, what are the coordinates of the point where the top of the ladder touches the wall?

Answer 1

Drawing a picture would be a good start.

Answer 2

Pythagorean theorem might be useful here...

Answer 3

for the point labeled (x,y), notice that if you start at (0,0) and go straight up, you do not change the x-value. The y value will get bigger.
Using that idea, what is the x value of the point at the top of the ladder?