Question

A guy-wire is attached to a pole for support. If the angle of elevation to the pole is 67° and the wire is attached to the ground at a point 137 feet from the base of the pole, what is the length of the guy wire (round to 2 decimal places)?

Answer 1

You have to go at this in a round-about fashion...by finding the length of the leg across from the 67 degree angle.  This is found by using the tangent ratio...Tan(67)=x/137; x=137tan(67) = 322.8. Now you can use this in one of two ways: use Pythagorean's Theorem to find the length of the hypotenuse OR you could use the sin67=322.8/x.  Up to you. Either way, make sure you have your calculator in degree mode!