Question

In an obstacle course, participants climb to the top of a tower and use a zip line to travelacross a mud pit. The zip line extends from the top of a tower to a point on the ground40.4 feet away from the base of the tower. The angle of elevation of the zip line is 30°.Which trigonometric ratio could be used to find the height of the tower?

Answer 1

Ok, in this type of excercise you have to imagine a triangle. This one is a right triangle defined by tree points that I will label A, B and C. Those points are: the base of the tower (A), the top of the tower (B) and the point on the ground where the zip line ends (C). The angle we are being told is between the ground (segment AC) and the zip line (segment BC) therefore is the angle
`\sin (angle)=\frac{\text{ opp side}}{\text{adj side}}`If we rewritte this equation with our values: