Dixon and his little sister Ariadne stand next to each other on the playground on a sunny afternoon. Their mother measures their shadows. Dixon's shadow is 18 feet long and Ariadne shadow is 15 feet long. If Dixon's is 6 feet tall, how tall is Ariadne?
To find out how tall Ariadne is, we can set up a proportion using the lengths of their shadows and their heights.
Let x be the height of Ariadne.
This gives us the proportion:
6 feet (Dixon's height) / 18 feet (Dixon's shadow length) = x feet (Ariadne's height) / 15 feet (Ariadne's shadow length)
Cross multiplying, we get:
6 * 15 = 18 * x
90 = 18x
Divide both sides by 18 to solve for x:
90 / 18 = x
5 = x
Therefore, Ariadne is 5 feet tall.