A surveyor sights the top of a building with a handheld range finder. The top of the building is 72 feet 10 inches away. The angle of elevation is 57º. Find the distance from the surveyor to the building to the nearest foot.
+130511 So, we know the hypoteneuse of a right triangle (72ft. 10 in) and we know an angle, 57°, and we're trying to find the adjacent side to that angle (the distance from the surveyor to the building). The trig function that relates these is the cosine.
So we have (conveting 72ft 10in into decimal form)
cos(57°) = adjacent / (72.833 ft) multiply both sides by 72.833 ft.
(72.833 ft.) * cos(57°) = adjacent side = about 39.67 ft. = 40 ft.
And that's the (rounded) distance from the surveyor to the building......
+130511 So, we know the hypoteneuse of a right triangle (72ft. 10 in) and we know an angle, 57°, and we're trying to find the adjacent side to that angle (the distance from the surveyor to the building). The trig function that relates these is the cosine.
So we have (conveting 72ft 10in into decimal form)
cos(57°) = adjacent / (72.833 ft) multiply both sides by 72.833 ft.
(72.833 ft.) * cos(57°) = adjacent side = about 39.67 ft. = 40 ft.
And that's the (rounded) distance from the surveyor to the building......
