Question

George Costanza is standing on top of a lighthouse that is 210 feet high. He sees his friends Jerry and Kramer in a boat. The angle of depression to the

boat is 27°. If the lighthouse was built at sea level, find the distance from the boat to the foot of the lighthouse, to the nearest hundredth of a foot
Distance from boat to lighthouse -
feet

Answer 1

412.15 ft to the nearest hundredth

Explanation:

You have to use the tangent function since you are given one leg of a right triangle and you are looking for the other leg

Let x = the distance from boat to lighthouse

So, tan 27 = 210/x

x tan 27 = 210

x = 210/tan 27

x = 412.14820 = 412.15 ft to the nearest hundredth