A ramp 10 feet in length rises to a loading Platform that is 4 feet off the ground. What is the angle of elevation of the ramp in degrees?

Do I use the law of cosines? When I do though I'm getting a little confused what to do.

No, it is a right triangle

sin angle = 4/10

I tried that and it said that it was the wrong answer.

Well I get 23.58 degrees.

you use sin^-1 then do 4/10

To find the angle of elevation of the ramp, you don't need to use the law of cosines. Instead, you can use basic trigonometry and the right triangle formed by the ramp, the loading platform, and the ground.

In this case, the length of the ramp is the hypotenuse of the right triangle, and the height of the loading platform is the opposite side. Therefore, you can use the sine function, which relates the opposite side to the hypotenuse:

sin(angle) = opposite / hypotenuse

In this case, the opposite side is 4 feet (height of the loading platform) and the hypotenuse is the length of the ramp, which is 10 feet. Plugging these values into the equation, you get:

sin(angle) = 4/10

To find the angle of elevation itself, you need to take the inverse sine (also known as arcsine) of both sides:

angle = arcsin(4/10)

Now, you can compute the angle using a scientific calculator or any online trigonometric calculator. The result will be the angle of elevation of the ramp in radians. To convert it to degrees, you can multiply the result by 180/π:

angle (in degrees) = (arcsin(4/10)) * (180/π)

Calculating this expression will give you the angle of elevation in degrees.