A ladder is leaning against the side of a building and forms an angle of 68o with the ground. The foot of the ladder is 12 feet from the base of the building. Find the length of the ladder to the nearest foot.
Since we know an angle and an adjacent side, we can use the cosine function to find the ladder length (the hypoteneuse), and we have......
cos(68°) = 12/x ............ where x is the ladder length
So......
x = 12/ cos(68°) = about 33.03 ft. = 33 ft.
