Question

To indirectly measure the distance across a river, Aaliyah stands on one side of the river and uses sight lines to a landmark on the opposite bank. Aaliyah draw the diagram below to show the lengths and angles that she measured. Find PR the distance across the river. Round your answer to the nearest foot.

Answer 1

For this case the triangle COP and ERP are similar then we can set up the following proportional rule:

`(CO)/(ER)=(120+PR)/(PR)`

Solving for PR we got:

`(320)/(215)=(120+PR)/(PR)`

320 PR = 25800 +215PR

105PR = 25800

PR= 1720/7 =245.71 ft

Rounded the answer would be:

246 ft