Firefighters at the Morganza Fire station need to measure the height of the station flagpole. They find that at the instant when the shadow of the stations is 18m long. The shadow is 10m high. Find the height of the flagpole.
how can a shadow have height?
Try proofreading this, and adding the missing information.
Maybe draw yourself a diagram and use similar triangles.
To find the height of the flagpole, we can use similar triangles. Let's denote the height of the flagpole as 'x'.
We have the following information:
- The length of the station's shadow is 18m.
- The height of the station is 10m.
We can set up a proportion using the similar triangles formed by the flagpole, its shadow, and the station:
Height of the flagpole / Length of the flagpole's shadow = Height of the station / Length of the station's shadow
So we have:
x / 18 = 10 / 10
Now we can cross-multiply and solve for 'x':
x = (18 * 10) / 10
x = 180 / 10
x = 18
Therefore, the height of the flagpole is 18 meters.