Question

in the figure below, when the sun angle of elevation is 50°, the tree casts a shadow 80 feet long which can be used to find the height of the tree?

Answer 1

We can use the tangent of 50º. The height is approximately 95.34 ft

1) We can trace a right triangle over that mark and calculate that height, using a trigonometric ratio.

2) As we have the adjacent leg to that 50º angle and the opposite leg, we can use the tangent of 50º to find that height out.

`\begin{gathered} \tan (50)=(x)/(80) \\ x=80\cdot\tan (50) \\ x\approx\text{ 95.34} \end{gathered}`

3) Hence the answer is

We can use the tangent of 50º. The height is approximately 95.34 ft