SOLUTION: A five foot six inch tall woman casts a twelve foot long shadow. at the sam time a tree casts a 45 foot long shadow. How tall is the tree?

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Question 103086: A five foot six inch tall woman casts a twelve foot long shadow. at the sam time a tree casts a 45 foot long shadow. How tall is the tree?
Answer by bucky(2189) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
You can solve this problem using proportions that are set up as follows:
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%28Height%29%2F%28Shadow%29+=+%28Height%29%2F%28Shadow%29
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The height of the woman is 5 ft 6 inches and this is 5.5 feet. Her shadow is 12 ft long.
Substituting these values results in:
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%285.5%29%2F%2812%29+=+%28Height%29%2F%28Shadow%29
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The shadow of the tree is 45 feet. Substitute this and you get:
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%285.5%29%2F%2812%29+=+%28Height%29%2F45
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You can get rid of the denominator of 45 by multiplying both sides of the equation by 45.
When you do that the equation becomes:
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You are now left with the equation:
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%28%2845%29%2A%285.5%29%29%2F12+=+%28Height%29
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Solve for the Height of the tree by multiplying out the numerator of 45*5.5 and dividing that
product by 12 to get:
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%28Height%29+=+%28%2845%29%2A%285.5%29%29%2F12+=+247.5%2F12=+20.625
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The tree is 20.625 feet tall. This converts to 20 ft 7.5 inches.
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Hope this helps you to understand the problem a little better ...
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