While you're at the top of the tower (65.6 feet up) you see an ant walking along the edge of the building. If the ant were to walk straight down the side of the tower (7.1 degree lean) u til it reaches the ground, how far would the ant travel? Which trigonometric ration would you use? Use the ratio to find the measurement. Confirm that answer by using Pythagorean theorem instead of trig ratios.

Question

Mathematics

Yoselin Boyd

13 October, 22:35

While you're at the top of the tower (65.6 feet up) you see an ant walking along the edge of the building. If the ant were to walk straight down the side of the tower (7.1 degree lean) u til it reaches the ground, how far would the ant travel? Which trigonometric ration would you use? Use the ratio to find the measurement. Confirm that answer by using Pythagorean theorem instead of trig ratios.

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Answers (1)

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Cailyn Burke · Answer 1

66.1 feet to the nearest tenth.

Step-by-step explanation:

You would use the cosine because we know the side adjacent to the angle and we need the hypotenuse.

cos 7.1 = a / h = 65.6 / h (h is the distance walked by the ant).

h = 65.6 / cos 7.1

= 66.1 feet to the nearest tenth.

Using Pythagoras 66.1^2 = 65.6^2 + x^2

x^2 = 65.85

x = 8.11 feet

Now we confirm that the angle is 7.1 degrees

sin 7.1 = 8.11 / 66.1 = 0.1236

x = 7.1 degrees which confirms the answer.