Question

A 30m tall building casts a shadow. the distance from top of the building to the top of the shadow is 36m. Find the lengths of the shadow

Answer 1

We want to solve for the length of the shadow in this problem.

Well, what do we know?

- Length of hypotenuse

- Length of one leg

- 90 degree angle

We can solve this two ways, the Pythagorean Theorem or a trig function. The Pythagorean Theorem is simpler, so let's use that.

$A^2 + B^2 = C^2$

where C is the hypotenuse.

$A^2 + 30^2 = 36^2\\A^2 = 36^2 - 30^2\\A^2 = 396\\\sqrt[]{396} = A\\ A = 19.89$