SOLUTION: Find the angle of elevation from the point on the ground 90 feet from the base of a building that is 200 feet tall

Question 625045: Find the angle of elevation from the point on the ground 90 feet from the base of a building that is 200 feet tall
Answer by jsmallt9(3758) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
It might help to have a diagram.

Draw a right triangle with horizontal and vertical legs.
The horizontal leg is the ground. Label its length as 90.
The vertical leg is the building. Label its length as 200.
This makes the angle between the horizontal and the hypotenuse the angle of elevation. Let's label it A.

To solve this problem we need to choose a Trig function whose ratio would include the two sides we know. Since the 90 is adjacent to angle A and the 200 is opposite to angle A, we want to use a ratio that involves adjacent and opposite. So we should use either tan or cot. Since your calculator probably does not have a cot button, we'll use tan:

Angle A is a acute angle (since it has to fit in a right triangle). And its tan ratio is 200/90. To find A we will use the inverse tan function:

Using our calculator on the right side we get:
A = 65.77225468
So the angle of elevation is approximately 66 degrees.
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