Question

According to the American National Standards Institute, a wheelchair ramp should make an angle of 4.75° with the horizontal. Find the length of such a ramp that rises 2 feet.

Answer 1

To find the length of a wheelchair ramp that rises 2 feet and makes an angle of 4.75° with the horizontal, we can use trigonometry and the sine function.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find the length of a ramp that rises 2 feet and makes an angle of 4.75° with the horizontal, we can use trigonometry. The ramp forms a right triangle with the horizontal ground, where the 2 feet is the length of the side opposite the angle of 4.75°, and the length of the ramp is the hypotenuse. We can use the sine function to find the length of the ramp:

sin(4.75°) = opposite/hypotenuse

Substituting the known values:

sin(4.75°) = 2/hypotenuse

Solving for the hypotenuse, we have:

hypotenuse = 2/sin(4.75°)

Using a calculator, the length of the ramp is approximately 25.634 feet.