Question

An escalator in a department store is to carry people a vertical distance of 18 feet between floors. How long is the escalator if it makes and angle of 40° with the floor? Round to 1 decimal place.

Answer 1

Drawing out the triangle, we get the one below. We can use the trigonometric ratio of tan to solve this problem.
$tan40= \frac{18}{x}$
$x= \frac{18}{tan40}$
x=21.5

:)