Question

Elliott is standing at the top of a store escalator that leads to the ground floor below. the angle of depression from the top of the escalator to the floor is 42.51°, and the escalator is 16 feet long. how far is the top of the escalator from the ground floor? round your answer to the nearest foot.

Answer 1

By using what we know about right triangles, we conclude that the height is 11ft.

How far is the top of the escalator from the ground floor?

We can think of this as a right triangle.

Where the length of the escalator is the hypotenuse

We know that the angle of depression is 42.51°, then the top angle of our right triangle is:

90° - 42.51° = 47.49°

Now, the height of the top of the escalator would be the adjacent cathetus to said angle, then we can use the relation:

cos(a) = (adjacent cathetus)/(hypotenuse)

Replacing what we know:

cos(47.49°)  = height/16ft

cos(47.49°) *16ft = height = 10.8ft

Rounding to the nearest foot, we get:

height = 11ft

If you want to learn more about right triangles:

brainly.com/question/2217700

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