An engineer on the ground is looking at the top of a building. The angle of elevation to the top of a building is 38 degrees. The engineer knows the building is 300ft tall. What is the distance from the engineer to the base of the building to the nearest while foot?
The opposite side to the angle of elevation is the height of the building and the side adjacent to the angle is the distance of the engineer to the base. The trigonometric function that represents the situation is tangent. tangent 38° = opposide side / adjacent side tangent 38° = 300 ft / x ft The value of x from the equation is 383.98 ft. Thus, the engineer is 383.98 ft.
