Sarah is looking at a bird perched on top of a street light. Her line of sight, which is the diagonal distance to the top of the street light, is 16 feet, and she is standing 12 feet from the base of the street light. Use the inverse of cosine to find the angle of elevation with which she is looking at the bird. Round your answer to the nearest whole degree. (1 point)

Question

Sarah is looking at a bird perched on top of a street light. Her line of sight, which is the diagonal distance to the top of the street light, is 16 feet, and she is standing 12 feet from the base of the street light. Use the inverse of cosine to find the angle of elevation with which she is looking at the bird. Round your answer to the nearest whole degree. (1 point)

Answer 1

To find the angle of elevation, we can use the inverse cosine function:

cos(angle) = adjacent/hypotenuse
cos(angle) = 12/16
angle = arccos(12/16)
angle ≈ arccos(0.75)
angle ≈ 41 degrees

Therefore, Sarah is looking at the bird with an angle of elevation of approximately 41 degrees.