Anna has a 10-foot long ladder that she is going to rest against a vertical wall along the bottom of a window-sill that is 8.5 feet above the ground. The safety code recommends that the angle the ladder makes with the ground be no greater than 65°. Will the ladder be safe resting on the window sill?
Draw a diagram, and show work to support your answer.
We have a right triangle ....the hypotenuse is 10 and the opposite side to the angle under consideration is 8.5
So..since the sine function relates the opposite side to the hypotenuse...we can use the arcsin function to see if this situation is safe....
arcsin (8.5/ 10) ≈ 58.2°
So....the ladder is safe....