A 17-foot ladder is placed against a vertical wall of a building, with the bottom of the ladder standing on level ground feet from the base of the building. How high up the wall does the ladder reach?

15 feet..

taking base as 8m

Given: ladder = 17 m and base = 8 m

The ladder forms a right triangle with the base of 8 m, the wall will be 15 m and the ladder (hypotenuse) is 17 m.

Let’s say you did not know that this was a standard 8–15–17 right triangle.

This is how you can figure it out:

hypotenuse(h)22 = side2112 + side2222

Let side11 = base and side22 = wall

1722 = 822 + wall22

wall = 172−82−−−−−−−√172−82

wall = 289−64−−−−−−−√289−64

wall = 225−−−√225

wall = 15 feet

40 is the final : )