Question

This one is a toughy. A sandbag is dropped from a balloon at a height of 60 meters when the angle of elevation to the sun is 30 degrees. find the rate at which the shadow of the sandbag is traveling along the ground when the sandbag is at the height of 35 meters. [ the position of the sandbag is given by s(t) = 60 - 4.9t^2

Answer 1

This pic might help. How can you express the height of the sandbag in terms of t? How can you express the position of the sandbag along the horizontal with respect to t? How can we determine velocity when we only know position? Hope this helps. Hint: You'll need trig and derivatives!