Centerville is the headquarters of Greedy Cablevision Inc. The cable company is about to expand service to two nearby towns, Springfield and Shelbyville. There needs to be cable connecting Centerville to both towns. The idea is to save on the cost of cable by arranging the cable in a Y-shaped configuation.

Centerville is located at (8,0) in the xy-plane, Springfield is at (0,7), and Shelbyville is at (0,- 7). The cable runs from Centerville to some point (x,0) on the x-axis where it splits into two branches going to Springfield and Shelbyville. Find the location (x,0) that will minimize the amount of cable between the 3 towns and compute the amount of cable needed.

20.2057 Units.

Step-by-step explanation:

First, we determine the length of the cable.

Distance between Centerville (8,0) and point (x,0) is given as:  

Distance between point (x,0) and Springfield(0,7) is:

Distance between point (x,0) and Shelvyfield(0,-7) is:

Therefore the Length of the Cable L(x)

To find the critical point, we set the derivative of L(x)=0

To verify that L(x) has a minimum at this critical number we compute the second derivative L″(x) and find its value at the critical number.

Since  is positive, the minimum point of L(x) exists.

Next, we find the minimum length by substituting z=3.1305 into L(x)

Minimum Length, L=20.2057

The minimum length of the cable is 20.2057 Units.