Kayson is looking at two buildings, building A and building B, at an angle of elevation of 73°. Building A is 30 feet away, and building B is 35 feet away. Which building is taller and by approximately how many feet?

Building A; it is around 16.35 feet taller than building B
Building A; it is around 114.48 feet taller than building B
Building B; it is around 16.35 feet taller than building A
Building B; it is around 114.48 feet taller than building A

Question

Kayson is looking at two buildings, building A and building B, at an angle of elevation of 73°. Building A is 30 feet away, and building B is 35 feet away. Which building is taller and by approximately how many feet?

Building A; it is around 16.35 feet taller than building B
 Building A; it is around 114.48 feet taller than building B
 Building B; it is around 16.35 feet taller than building A
 Building B; it is around 114.48 feet taller than building A

Mercury · Answer

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sketch of the problem. I'll call the height of building A by lowercase a, and the height of building B by lowercase b

for both buildings, you have the angle 73 degrees, and the adjacent side, and you want to know the opposite. set up the appropriate trig ratio for both buildings, separately, to calculate a and b, then simply subtract the larger height - smaller height to find the difference.