Question

A street light is on top of a 8 foot pole. Joe,
who is 4 feet tall, walks away from the pole at
a rate of 4 feet per second. At what speed is
the tip of Joe’s shadow moving from the base
of the pole when he is 13 feet from the pole?

Answer 1

yay a related rate problem, the bane of all calc students. let me try to draw a picture

Answer 2

actually the problem with this one is that it is too easy, because the man is half the height of the pole. we want the rate of change of the shadow, so i will label it as y, and the distance from the man to the pole we will call x