Question

Hey if anybody could please give me a hand and explain this question to me and help me out that would be great

Answer 1

Explanation:

We can use similar triangles to solve this. The bigger triangle is made up of the water tower as the height and the long horizontal line as its base, and the smaller triangle fitted inside the larger is made up of the tripod of the camera as the height and the distance Brian lies on the ground beyond it as the base for that triangle. We have to add this distance to the distance of the larger triangle's base. Setting it up as a proportion:

`(watertower)/(base) =(camera)/(base)`

but since everything is in different measurements, we have to sort that out first. Let's change everything to feet.

The water tower's distance is 100 yards + 2 feet 9 inches:

`100yds*(3ft)/(1yd)=300'` and now we add in 2 feet 9 inches which is 2.75 feet to get a total of 302.75 feet from the base of the water tower to the point of the triangle. Since we have already converted Brian's distance to feet we're ready to set up the proportion:

`(x)/(302.75) =(5)/(2.75)` and we cross multiply.

2.75x = 1513.75 and divide to get

x = 550.45 feet tall.