Find the distance from the ladder to the base of the slide, marked with an x in the diagram. Give your answer accurate to one decimal place.
The height of the right angle triangle is 4 m, the hypotenuse is 7 m and the missing variable is on the bottom marked with an x. I used pythagorean theorem and finally got 6 m as my answer therefore x = 6 (a=c2﹣b2) and now i have to find the angle the slide makes with the ground:
If i were to do 6 (base of the slide) divided by 7 and do Tan-1 (6/7) and get 41 degrees would my answer be correct? Thanks! :)
x^2 + 16 = 49
x^2 = 33
x = 5.7445
well sin^-1(4/7) will do
that is 34.85 degrees
your way
tan^-1 (4/5.7445)
that is also 34.85 degrees
I got it! Thank you so much!
To find the distance from the ladder to the base of the slide, marked with an x in the diagram, you first correctly used the Pythagorean theorem to find that x = 6 m. Well done on that!
Now, to find the angle the slide makes with the ground, you can use the inverse tangent function (denoted as tan⁻¹ or atan) of the ratio of the opposite side (6 m in this case) to the adjacent side (7 m in this case).
So, if you calculate tan⁻¹(6/7) to find the angle, you are on the right track. Plug that into a calculator, and you will indeed get approximately 41 degrees.
Therefore, your answer of 41 degrees for the angle the slide makes with the ground is correct based on the given information.