SOLUTION: You are lying 120 ft. away from a tree that is 50 ft tall. You look up at the top pf the tree. Approximately how far is your hear from the top of the tree in a straight line?
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-> SOLUTION: You are lying 120 ft. away from a tree that is 50 ft tall. You look up at the top pf the tree. Approximately how far is your hear from the top of the tree in a straight line?
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Question 127693: You are lying 120 ft. away from a tree that is 50 ft tall. You look up at the top pf the tree. Approximately how far is your hear from the top of the tree in a straight line? Answer by bucky(2189) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! This is a Pythagorean theorem problem. The Pythagorean theorem says that in a right triangle
the sum of the squares of the two legs is equal to the square of the hypotenuse. In equation
form this is:
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a^2 + b^2 = c^2
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The distance from you to the base of the tree is 120 feet. This is one leg. The tree forms
a right angle with the ground, and the tree is 50 feet tall. This is the second leg of the
right triangle. The straight line distance from you to the top of the tree is the hypotenuse.
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If you substitute 120 feet and 50 feet for the two legs of the triangle in the Pythagorean equation
you get:
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120^2 + 50^2 = c^2
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Square the two terms on the left side to get:
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14400 + 2500 = c^2
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Add the two terms on the left side to reduce the equation to:
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16900 = c^2
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Solve for c, the unknown straight line distance from you to the top of the tree by taking
the square root of both sides and you get (on your calculator):
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130 = c
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So the answer is that you are 130 feet from the top of the tree.
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Hope this helps you to understand the problem and one way that you can solve it.
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