John stands at 12 feet from the foot of a tree. The angle of elevation to the top of the tree is 60°. What is the height of the tree?

tan 60 = h/12

To find the height of the tree, you can use trigonometry. In this case, we have a right triangle formed by John, the tree, and the ground.

We know that the angle of elevation is 60°, which means the angle between the ground and John's line of sight to the top of the tree is 60°. We also know that John is standing 12 feet away from the foot of the tree.

In a right triangle, the opposite side to an angle is usually considered as the height. In this case, the height of the tree is the opposite side, and the distance between John and the tree is the adjacent side.

To find the height of the tree, we can use the tangent function:

tan(angle) = opposite / adjacent

In this case, we have:

tan(60°) = height / 12

We can rearrange the equation to solve for height:

height = 12 * tan(60°)

Using a calculator, the tangent of 60° is approximately 1.732.

height = 12 * 1.732
height = 20.784

Therefore, the height of the tree is approximately 20.784 feet.