SOLUTION: an engineering firm is looking at drawings for a new bridge that has metal supports in the shape of a right triangle the bases of the supports have a 64 degree angle and the 90 dgr

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Question 1151559: an engineering firm is looking at drawings for a new bridge that has metal supports in the shape of a right triangle the bases of the supports have a 64 degree angle and the 90 dgree angle. the base is 6 feet long how long will the hypotnueuse of the right triangle be
Answer by jim_thompson5910(35256) About Me  (Show Source):
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Diagram


With angle A = 64 as the reference angle, AB = 6 is the adjacent side and AC = x is the hypotenuse.

Cosine deals with the ratio of the adjacent over hypotenuse.

cos(angle) = adjacent/hypotenuse
cos(A) = AB/AC
cos(64) = 6/x
x*cos(64) = 6
x = 6/cos(64)
x = 13.6870322 approximately
x = 13.69

The hypotenuse of the right triangle is approximately 13.69 feet long.