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Question: geometry...help please

geometry...help please

Just help me figure out what to do... A 12 ft. ladder is leaning on a building. The ladder makes a 75 degree angle with the ground. How far is the base of the ladder from the base of the building?

Date Posted: September 03, 2007 Tagged Under: angles . geometry . triangle . Math . trigonometry
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Your trig functions ar needed to solve this problem
Sin-Opp/Hyp
Cos-Adj/Hyp
Tan-Opp/Adj

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3.106 feet from the building

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No problem.

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Sry Juke didn't mean to give you that rating. And i dont know

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5 ft

Rating:
7.8

If you draw the picture you have a triangle. The ladder side (12') is the hypotenuse, the ground between the ladder and the building is the adjacent side of the triangle and the building is called the opposite side of the triangle. The angle the ladder makes is theta. Basically you will use the trigonometric functions, which are sin, cos, and tangent:

cos (theta) = adjacent/hypotenuse
sin (theta)= opposite/hypotenuse
tan (theta)= opposite/adjacent

In this particular problem you are given theta (75degrees) and the hypotenuse (12'). You need to solve how far the base of the ladder is from the building which is the adjacent side. You have 2 of the three variables and need to solve for the third. The equation would then look like this:

cos (75) = x/12
.258=x/12
3.106=x
The ladder is 3.106 feet from the building.