Question 594840: A man is 6 ft. tall, and is standing 12 ft. away from a 16 ft. tall lightpost. How long is his shadow? Answer by vleith(2983) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! This is a really poor question. Is the light on? Is it daytime? So much information missing. But let's assume the light is on and that light is the only light we are dealing with.
In that case, you can model this problem by drawing a vertical line to represent the lightpost and scale it to 16 untis. Then move 12 units the left. Then draw another vertical line a 6 units. Now draw a line from the top of the lightpost that touches the top of the 6 foot person. Mark where it crosses 'the ground' and call that point A. Mark the distance between the base of the person and A - call that length x.
Now, knowing what you know about similar triangles, you can say
Then solve for x
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