Question

Dean is on top of a 300 m high cliff. He sees Emily in her new sailboat. If dean calculates the angle of depression to the boat to be 25° how far from the base of the cliff is Emily’s boat

Answer 1

To answer this question we will use the following diagram as reference:

Let d be the distance from the base of the cliff to Emily's boat, then, from the above diagram we can set the following equation:

$\tan 25º=\frac{300m}{d}\text{.}$

Then:

$d=\frac{300m}{\tan 25º}\text{.}$

Simplifying the above result we get:

$d\approx643.35m$

Answer:

$643.35m$