Question

The horizontal shadow of a vertical tree is 23.4 m long when the angle of elevation of the sun is 56.3 degrees. How tall is the tree? Round to the nearest meter.

Answer 1

id try to use a tangent function ....

Answer 2

How would I do that? :P

Answer 3

you need to recall the definition for the tangent function, the rest is just basic algebra

Answer 4

once you have that definition, let me know

Answer 5

Opposite/Adjacent?

Answer 6

yep so they give us an angle, a, and a known length, k.

so, tan(a) = h/k

h = k tan(a) which a calculator set to degree mode should pop out

Answer 7

So h=23.4*tan(56.3)
h=35.0868
Right?

Answer 8

thats what i get ... so rnding to 35m should suffice

Answer 9

Ok :) thank you.

Answer 10

youre welcome