Question

Dean is on top of a 300 m high cliff. He sees Emily in her new sailboat. If dean calculates the angle of depression to the boat to be 25° how far from the base of the cliff is Emily’s boat

Answer 1

To answer this question we will use the following diagram as reference:

Let d be the distance from the base of the cliff to Emily's boat, then, from the above diagram we can set the following equation:

`\tan 25º=(300m)/(d)\text{.}`

Then:

`d=(300m)/(\tan 25º)\text{.}`

Simplifying the above result we get:

`d\approx643.35m`

Answer:

`643.35m`