Question

Help with Trigonomic ratios!!!
I have a right triangle with another angle at 51 degrees and the opposite side is 6 how do I find the length of the other leg?

Answer 1

SOH CAH TOA

the 2 legs are the opposite and adjacent sides, so we need to use the tangent ratio
TOA ---> tan(51) = opp/adj = 6/x

solve for x

Answer 2

would it be 7.409?

Answer 3

I've tried to do these kinds of equations on a few tests so far and always get them wrong

Answer 4

no

\[\frac{6}{x} = \tan(51)\]
flip both sides
\[\frac{x}{6} = \frac{1}{\tan(51)}\]
multiply by 6
\[x = \frac{6}{\tan(51)}\]

Answer 5

ohhhhh okay. so it would be 4.858?

Answer 6

correct

Answer 7

Okay. Could you help me with one more?
It's probably easy like this one but I'm just not getting these...

Answer 8

sure

Answer 9

The problem is tan(x)=5/1 and my course never really taught me this…

Answer 10

ok in this case we want to find the angle

because the variable is inside the tangent function, the only way to solve for "x" is to get rid of tangent by using the inverse tangent
same reason you get rid of x^2 by using square root

\[\tan^{-1} (\tan x) = \tan^{-1} (\frac{5}{1})\]
\[x = \tan^{-1} (5)\]
use your calculator, make sure you are in degree mode

Answer 11

78.690?

Answer 12

correct

Answer 13

Yay! Thank you so much!!

Answer 14

yw :)

by the way, are you from phoenix?

Answer 15

No haha. I just really love mythology and Phoenixlizzie was my username from another site. My favorite mythological creature and my middle name!

Answer 16

ok cool .... i live in phoenix

Answer 17

Oh cool! I'm from NH but we just moved to SC. The heat is killing me here- I couldn't imagine Phoenix!