Abstract: We investigate the "hanging cable" problem for practical applica- tions. We focus on determining the minimum distance between two vertical poles which will prevent a cable, hanging from the top of these poles, to touch the ground. We consider two set-ups, starting with the case of equal poles then generalizing to unequal poles. In both cases we assume that the only known quantities are the heights of the poles and the length of the cable.

^*High school student when the paper was written.