A 40-foot flagpole casts a 30-foot shadow. How do you Find o, the angle of elevation?
tan o = 40/30 = 4/3
use your calculator to find o = appr 53°
Thank you. What do I press in my calculator to find o?
On most this should work:
4 ÷ 3 =
2ndF tan =
you should get 53.1301....
or try this
2ndF tan (4÷3) =
To find the angle of elevation, we need to use some trigonometric functions. In this case, we will use the tangent function.
The tangent of an angle is defined as the ratio of the length of the opposite side to the length of the adjacent side. In this scenario, the opposite side is the height of the flagpole (40 feet), and the adjacent side is the length of the shadow (30 feet).
To find the angle of elevation, we can use the formula:
tan(angle) = opposite/adjacent
Substituting the given values into the equation:
tan(angle) = 40/30
Now, to find the angle itself, we need to take the inverse tangent (also known as arctan or tan^-1) of both sides:
angle = arctan(40/30)
Using a calculator or an online tool that has trigonometric functions, you can evaluate the arctan(40/30) to find the angle of elevation.