Problema Solution
A lamp casts a shadow from a man standing 10 feet away. The shadow is 5 feet long. The angle of elevation from the tip of the shadow to the lamp is 50 degrees. How tall is the lamppost?
Answer provided by our tutors
let 'h' represents the height of the lamppost
The tip of the shadow is 10 + 5 = 15 ft away from the bottom of the post.
If you make a drawing, you'll see that
tan(50) = h / 15
h / 15 = tan(50) multiply both sides by 15
h = 15*(tan(50))
h = 17.88 ft rounded to 2 decimals
the lamppost is 17.88 ft tall.