Question

A man knows that his apple tree is 51 ft high. At 11:00 am the tree casts a shadow of 68 ft. What is the angle of elevation of the sun? Round to the nearest tenth

Answer 1

36.9 degrees

Explanation:

This problem can be solved by drawing a right triangle and doing trigonometry. We can draw our triangle with a height of 51 and a base of 68. In order to find the angle from the ground to the sun we can use arctangent (tan^-1). Since tan(angle)=opposite/adjacent we can find the angle by doing angle=tan^-1(51/68)