Question

Today, the Great Pyramid at Giza near Cairo, Egypt stands 137 meters tall, coming to a point. Its base is a square with each side measuring 230 meters wide. What is the slope of the pyramid?

Answer 1

Do you know your formula? :)

Answer 2

Would it be the rise over the run? I'm really not sure, I'm very confused.

Answer 3

It's been a little bit since I did this but if this makes any sense: find the distance between the center and the bottom of the triangular face. The height over that distance is the slope. If you want the slope of an edge, find the distance between the center and the corner at the bottom of that edge. The height divided by this distance is the slope.

Answer 4

would the distance be 93?

Answer 5

wait a sec... that really didn't make any sense what I just wrote :P I'm really terrible at this. okay this should get you there:

imagine the square edgeways on, mark the apex at whatever height you want and draw in the two faces. You will end up with two back-to-back, right angled triangles. The base of each triangle will be half the length of the side of the base of the pyramid.

Now you can use good old Pythagoras to find the length of the sloping face and basic trig to find the angle between the face and the base.

Let the length of the base of the pyramid = x
Let the height = h
Then the length of the sloping face = √[h^2 + (0.5x)^2]
For the angle between the face and the base we have
tanѲ = h / 0.5x
Ѳ = arctan (h / 0.5x)

Sorry for the confusion! I hope this helps better...

Answer 6

Thank you so much. I got it

Answer 7

You're welcome :)