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Trigonometry 11 Online
OpenStudy (tgrig04):

A 6-foot-tall man is standing 50 ft from a flagpole. When he looks at the top of the flagpole, the angle of elevation is 39 degrees. Find the height of the flagpole to the nearest foot.

OpenStudy (raffle_snaffle):

okay so I would draw this out first.

OpenStudy (raffle_snaffle):

|dw:1462494278795:dw|

OpenStudy (raffle_snaffle):

Use tan(theta)

OpenStudy (tgrig04):

So would it be tan(39) = x/50

OpenStudy (raffle_snaffle):

yes

OpenStudy (tgrig04):

Why do you have h as the thing we need to solve for? Wouldn't it be for the height of the flagpole

OpenStudy (raffle_snaffle):

no we need to find x which is the height of the flag pole. I wrote h to indicate the hypotenuse

OpenStudy (raffle_snaffle):

it was irrelevant, sorry

OpenStudy (raffle_snaffle):

you got it?

OpenStudy (tgrig04):

So the answer is 40.49?

OpenStudy (raffle_snaffle):

it would be 40 ft, since it calls for nearest foot

OpenStudy (tgrig04):

Ok, Thank you so much!

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