Question

a 20 foot ladder leans against a building. if the ladder is 8 feet from the building, find to the nearest degree, the measure of the angle that the foot of the ladder makes with the ground

Answer 1

Explanation:

Since this is a right triangle, we can use trig functions

cos theta = adj/ hyp

cos theta = 8/20

cos theta = 2/5

Taking the inverse cos of each side

cos^-1 (cos theta) = cos ^-1 ( 2/5)

theta =66.42182152

To the nearest degree

theta = 66 degrees