Dixon and his little sister Ariadne stand next to each other on the playground on a sunny afternoon. Their mother measures their shadows. Dixon's shadow is 18 feet long and Ariadne's shadow is 15 feet long. If Dixon is 6 feet tall, how tall is Ariadne?
6/18 = x/15
Cross multiply and solve for x.
To determine Ariadne's height, you can use a proportion based on the lengths of their shadows. Since shadows are directly proportional to the height of an object, we can set up the following proportion:
Dixon's height / Dixon's shadow length = Ariadne's height / Ariadne's shadow length
Let's plug in the values we know: Dixon's height is 6 feet, Dixon's shadow length is 18 feet, and Ariadne's shadow length is 15 feet.
6 / 18 = Ariadne's height / 15
To solve for Ariadne's height, we cross-multiply:
6 * 15 = 18 * Ariadne's height
90 = 18 * Ariadne's height
Divide both sides of the equation by 18 to isolate Ariadne's height:
90 / 18 = Ariadne's height
Ariadne's height is 5 feet.