Question

At high noon, the sun is almost directly above (about 2.0 degrees from the vertical) and a tall redwood tree casts a shadow that is 10m long. How tall is the redwood tree?

Answer 1

290m

The light always travels in a straight line.

At high noon, the ray from the sun is 2° from the vertical axis.

tan θ = (Opposite side)/(Adjacent side)

On applying above trigonometric formula, we get,

tan 2 = 10/h

0.035 = 10/h

∴ h = 10/0.035 = 290 m