It took me awhile to figure out where the triangle was but as you said, draw
a picture. Clever solution. Thanks.


"Andy" wrote in message
ups.com...
OK. So how did you compute it :-)

I've had to do this a few times recently - I puzzled over it for quite
a while at first, and finally realized it's all a matter of applying
the pythagorean theorem. a^2 + b^2 = c^2 (or maybe there's an easier
way I haven't found yet, in which case I hope someone will enlighten
me...)

You know one side of your triangle with the given width. Let's call
that a, and it is 22.5" (half of your total width).
You're looking for the hypotenuse, which is the radius, which we'll
call c.
The third edge of the triangle is the radius minus 8" (your rise), so
we'll call that b, or (c-8).
Pythagoreus says a^2 + b^2 = c^2, so now as my 8th grade algebra
teacher used to say, plug-n-chug.

22.5^2 + (c-8)^2 = c^2
506.25 + c^2 - 16c +64 = c^2
570.25 = 16c
c = 35.604625, or just a hair (1/128) under 35 39/64, or practically,
I'd use 35 5/8.
(It's a lot easier if you can draw a picture...)
Andy