Question

A meerkat was digging a new path to get to his home 8 ft below the surface. He hit a stump and dug 15 ft lower so the roots would not be in his path. What elevation is the meerkat?

Answer 1

The elevation is
`32.3^(o)`.

Explanation:

The home of the meerkat is 8 feet below the surface. So that the root of the stump would not be in his path, he dug 15 feet lower.

This can be represented by the sides of a right angled triangle. Applying the appropriate trigonometric function, let the elevation be represented by θ.

Then,

Sin θ =
`(opposite)/(hypotenuse)`

=
`(8)/(15)`

Sin θ = 0.5333

⇒ θ =
`Sin^(-1)` 0.5333

= 32.287

θ =
`32.3^(o)`

The elevation of the meerkat is
`32.3^(o)`.