Homework Help: Math

Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, December 12, 2009 at 5:39pm.

Fred was measuring the height of a building. He stood standing at some distance from
the building and measured an angle of 38 degrees to the top of the building. He then
walked 100 feet further away from the building and measured an angle of 34 degrees to
the top.
How tall is the building?

I know I'm suppose to use tan

I got tan38=y/x from the first part of the information. I need help getting the second part

Math - Reiny, Saturday, December 12, 2009 at 7:04pm
from the outer triangle
tan 34 = y/(x+100)
y = (x+100)tan 34

from your equation
y = xtan 38

so xtan 38 = (x+100)tan 34
xtan 38 = xtan 34 + 100tan 34
xtan 38 - xtan 34 = 100tan 34
x(tan 38 - tan 34) = 100tan 34
x = 100tan 34/(tan 38 - tan 34)

once you found x, you can find y using your first equation.

Answer this Question

Related Questions

physics - Consider a boy standing on a building that is 500m height and another...
Math - Billy is standing 80 feet from the base of a building. The angle of ...
physics - A ball is thrown horizontally with an initial velocity of 20.0 m/s ...
Math - Mark wanted to measure the height of a nearby building. He placed a ...
Math - S surveyor standing 2277 ft from the base of a building measured a 31 ...
trig - The angle of elevation to the top of a very tall Building is found to be ...
trig - The angle of elevation to the top of a very tall Building is found to be ...
trig - The angle of elevation to the top of a very tall Building is found to be ...
physics ( help) - Hypothetically, if you were standing on the balcony of an ...
Physics - Hypothetically, you are standing on the balcony of an apartment on the...

For Further Reading

First Name:
School Subject:
Answer: