Question

A dog has dug holes in diagonally-opposite corners of a rectangular yard. One length of the yard is 8 meters and the distance between the two holes is 17 meters. How wide is the yard?

Answer 1

For a better understanding of the solution provided please go through the diagram in the file attached.

Let ABCD be the rectangular yard. The diagonal d=17 meters. AD=8 meters. Therefore, the length of DC can be found by applying the Pythagorean theorem in the right triangle $\Delta ADC$ as:

$DC=\sqrt{17^2-8^2}=\sqrt{(AC)^2-(AD)^2}=\sqrt{225} =15$ meters.