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A 20 ft ladder is placed next to a building. The ladder forms a 72° angle with the ground. How far is base of the ladder from the base of the building? Round your answer to the nearest tenth of a foot. Show your work.

 

Please give a step by step explaition, I remeber learning this and solving with Tan, Cos, and Sin equations but can't rember how to set the equation up correctly. Thank you so much for your time and help!

 Mar 4, 2019
 #1
avatar+129847 
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The ladder forms the hypotenuse of a right triangle

 

We know an angle and we are looking for the adjacent side to this angle

 

So....the cosine =  adjacent / hypotenuse

 

So we have

 

cos (72°) =  adj / 20      multiply both sides by 20

 

20 cos (72°) = adj   ≈ 6.18 ft  = 6.2 ft     from the building base

 

cool cool cool

 Mar 4, 2019

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