Question

What angle is formed between the ground and the baseball bat?

Answer 1

Since the triangle in the diagram is a right triangle, we can use the trigonometric function cosine to solve this problem.

The cosine of an angle x is defined as follows:

`\cos x=\frac{\text{adjacent side}}{\text{hypotenuse}}`

First, we have to find the adjacent side to the angle x:

And then, find the hypotenuse of the triangle, which will be the side opposite to the 90° angle:

`\begin{gathered} \text{adjacent side=15in} \\ \text{hypotenuse}=32in \end{gathered}`

Thus, we substitute this in the definition of the cosine of x:

`\cos x=(15in)/(32in)`

And to solve for x, we use the inverse cosine:

`x=\cos ^(-1)((15)/(32))`

The result is:

`x=62.05`

Answer: 62.05°