Question

Last one:

A mountain climber is at an altitude of 2.9 mi above the earth’s surface.

From the climber’s viewpoint, what is the distance to the horizon?
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Answer 1

The segment of the horizon and the mountain climber is tangent to the circle. Meaning that the side of `3959 mi` and `x` creates a right angle. So we can find out distance as if we did Pythagorean theorem.

\(\large\bf{3959^{2} +b^{2}=(3959+2.9)^{2}}\)