Question

A tower is 200 ft tall to the nearest degree find the angle of elevation from a point of 50 feet from the base of the tower to the top of the tower?

Answer 1

Answer:

Step-by-step explanation:

What you have here is classic right triangle trig.  The height of the tower is the height of a right triangle, and the point 50 feet from the base of the tower is the base of the triangle.  The angle of elevation is the base angle that is NOT the right angle.  The height is opposite the base angle, while the base is adjacent to the angle, so we need the tangent ratio to find the angle.  Here's what we have:

$tan(\theta)=\frac{200}{50}$

When you are looking for a missing angle, you use the inverse of the angle on your calculator.  To do this, hit the 2nd button, then tan, and what you see on your screen is

$tan^{-1}($

Enter 200/50 (or 4) and hit "enter" to find the missing angle.  It comes out to 75.9 so 76 degrees.