Question

Anatoly has broken down on highway 138 and needs to hike to Mountain Top to make a call. The distance on the road is 3 miles and the change is 1752 ft. What is the angle of the road ?

Answer 1

First, draw a picture.

The units are not the same so change miles to ft

3 miles =

1 miles = 5280 ft

3 miles = 3 * 5280 = 15840 ft

The hypotenuse is 15840

Using trig functions

sin theta = opp / hypotenuse

sin theta = 1752 / 15840

Taking the inverse sin

theta = sin^-1( 1752/15840)

theta = 6.35025 degrees