Question

Help with solving real life problems with right triangles

Answer 1

You are standing on a cliff that is 50 m above the ocean and you see a ship that is 950 m from the bottom of the cliff. Find the angle of depression from you to the ship. Round your answer to the nearest tenth of a degree.

Answer 2

is that what it would look like?

Answer 3

tan=50/950?

Answer 4

yeah

Answer 5

0.0526?

Answer 6

well... \(\tan(\theta)=\dfrac{50}{950}\)
So you need to find the angle by applying \(\tan^{-1}\) to both sides

Answer 7

So both to 50 and 950?

Answer 8

\[\theta=\tan^{-1}\left(\dfrac{50}{950}\right)\].. which you'd need to find on your calculator

Answer 9

3 degrees?

Answer 10

Yeah. Although they say to the nearest tenth, so 3.0