A six-foot person walks from the base of a broadcasting tower directly toward the tip of the shadow cast by the tower. When the person is 122 feet from the tower and 3 feet from the tip of the shadow, the person's shadow starts to appear beyond the tower's shadow.
(a) Draw a right triangle that gives a visual representation of the problem. Show the known quantities of the triangle and use a variable to indicate the height of the tower.

(b) Use a trigonometric function to write an equation involving the unknown quantity h.
(c) What is the height of the tower?

Question

A six-foot person walks from the base of a broadcasting tower directly toward the tip of the shadow cast by the tower. When the person is 122 feet from the tower and 3 feet from the tip of the shadow, the person's shadow starts to appear beyond the tower's shadow.
(a) Draw a right triangle that gives a visual representation of the problem. Show the known quantities of the triangle and use a variable to indicate the height of the tower.

(b) Use a trigonometric function to write an equation involving the unknown quantity h.
(c) What is the height of the tower?

moonlitfate · Answer

|dw:1347137098318:dw|

anonymous · Answer

your picture is wrong
when the guy is standing 122 ft away, his shadow overlaps the rest of the shadow of the tower
the guy's shadow is 3 ft
|dw:1347137585825:dw|

anonymous · Answer

the guy is 6 ft tall

radar · Answer

|dw:1347138181625:dw|
Set up a proportion as they are similar triangles.

radar · Answer

Never mind, they don't want you to use proportion, but a trignometric function.

radar · Answer

|dw:1347139066252:dw| Tan theta = 6/3 = 2
Tan theta = h/125
2=h/125
h = 250 ft.