Question

A street light is at the top of a 17 ft tall pole. A woman 6 ft tall walks away from the pole with a speed of 8 ft/sec along a straight path. How fast is the tip of her shadow moving when she is 50 ft from the base of the pole?
plz help

Answer 1

I haven't seen a problem like that and it is going to take me more time than I have to figure out. If I were you, I would look that one up on google. Type the problem word for word in the search and see if you can find either that problem or a similar one.

Answer 2

If it was a right angle question I could've helped you out.

Answer 3

no its a derivative based question but thanks anyways

Answer 4

no problem

Answer 5

it will be approx. 12.36 ft/sec.

Answer 6

in the fig let BD is y so the dy/dt=8 ft/s. let BE=x and we have to find out dx/ dt when x=50.
Now triangle ABE and CDE are similar so 17/6= x/x-y which gives you the result 11x=17y.
Differentiate both sides with respect to t it is 11 dx/dt= 17 dy/dt now put the value.

Answer 7

i still confused

Answer 8

Dr. J already gave you the answer. It's 12.36 ft/sec.

Answer 9

Refer to the attached solution solved with Mathematica.