Trig Word Problem

Level 2

You and your friends are going on a road trip to San Francisco, and are driving across the Golden Gate bridge. As you are driving along the bridge, you wonder how far your car is from the top of the pillar. You assume the pillar is 25m tall and your car creates an angle of elevation of 45° to the top of the pillar.

(Answer should be to the nearest tenth)


The answer is 35.4.

Eric Taylor by Eric Taylor , 21, Canada

This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and, finally, (c) loading the non-javascript version of this page . We're sorry about the hassle.

3 solutions

Harrison Froats
May 31, 2017

= s i n ( 45 ) 25 h y p =sin(45) \frac{25}{hyp} )

h y p = 25 s i n ( 45 ) hyp=\frac{25}{sin(45)} )

h y p = 35.4 hyp=35.4

2 Helpful 0 Interesting 0 Brilliant 0 Confused
Eric Taylor
May 31, 2017

We have the angle of elevation (45°), distance from car to pillar (25m), and the angle the pillar forms with the bridge (90°). We can use trigonometric ratios or sine law to solve. For convenience, I will solve it using sine law.

a s i n A \frac{a}{sinA} = b s i n B \frac{b}{sinB}

a = s i n ( 90 ° ) × 25 m s i n ( 45 ° ) a=sin(90°)×\frac{25m}{sin(45°)}

a = 35.4 a=35.4

1 Helpful 0 Interesting 0 Brilliant 0 Confused
Peter Michael
May 30, 2017

There is a right spread

Multiply by square root 2

Get thirty-two.four

1 Helpful 0 Interesting 0 Brilliant 0 Confused

More explanation required for why you are multiplying by square root 2. Your solution is incorrect.

Eric Taylor - 4 years ago

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...