Question

The sun is behind a building and casting a shadow. How long is the shadow if the building is 25 feet tall and the angle, of the shadow, opposite the building is 27°?

Answer 1

ANSWER

The length of the shadow is 49 ft to nearest feet.

EXPLANATION

We can find the length of the shadow using the tangent ratio.

Recall that,

$\tan(27 \degree) = \frac{opposite}{adjacent}$
From the diagram, the length of the shadow is the side of the triangle that is adjacent to the 27° angle

$\tan(27 \degree) = \frac{45}{adjacent}$

This implies that,

$adjacent = \frac{45}{tan27 \degree}$

$adjacent = 49 .065$