Question

A person on top of a 44-meter water tower sees a car below. If the angle of depression between the top of the watertower to the car below is 30°, how far, in meters, is the person from the car? Solve for x in the diagram below.

Answer 1

As shown :

X represents a hypotenuse of the right triangle

The angle between the hypotenuse and the ground = 30

The opposite side of the angle 30 = 44

so,

$\begin{gathered} \sin 30=\frac{opposite}{\text{hypotenuse}}=\frac{44}{x} \\ \\ x=\frac{44}{\sin30}=\frac{44}{0.5}=88 \end{gathered}$

So, the person will be 88 meters far from the car