a 25-ft rope is stretched from the top of
a ship's mast to a cleat on the deck. if
the cleat is 16 ft from the base of the
mast, how tall is the mast?

The height of mast is 19.21 feet

Solution:

Given that, 25-ft rope is stretched from the top of  a ship's mast to a cleat on the deck

The cleat is 16 ft from the base of the  mast

To find: height of mast

The ship mast, deck and base forms a right angled triangle

The figure is attached below

AC = length of rope = 25 feet

BC = distance between base of mast and cleat = 16 feet

AB = height of mast = ?

Pythagorean theorem, states that the square of the length of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of squares of the lengths of other two sides of the right-angled triangle

By above definition for right angled triangle ABC,

Thus height of mast is 19.21 feet

d

gimmee one of those gold crowns!

~coco