Real-Life Math
You are a naval architect designing a yacht for a customer. You are going over the requirements for the boat with him. "I want a staircase leading from the lower bedroom to the dining room," the client tells you.
Naval architects use math to calculate the curves, loads and stresses in boat design. "With computers, we can plug a lot of the numbers in and have the computer crunch them for us," says Pat Bray, a naval architect. "It's a lot easier, but you have to understand what you are putting in, and the numbers that you are getting out."
As on any type of boat, space is always a factor. When you design the staircase, you realize that you only have 4 feet for the horizontal distance from the base of stair to the wall. The vertical distance to the next floor is 7 feet.
Because this will be a steep stair, and because it is on a boat, you will need to design railings. You want to specially design teak railings to match the rest of the interior.
How long should each railing be? (Hint: calculate this using the Pythagorean theorem for right triangles.) Formula:
a2 + b2 = c2
a = vertical distance
b = horizontal distance
c = stairs (and railing length)