I’m not sure how to solve this equation...
Alright, first off, sorry, if I’m posting this under the wrong place, while I did get this problem under a trigonometry lesson, but I believe it’s the Algebra part of it, that I’m confused on.
The question is,
At two points 65 feet apart on the same side of a tree and in line with it, the angles of elevation of the top of the tree are 21° 19' and 16° 20'. Find the height of the tree.
Now it says under the answer, that you end up with the two equations,
0.293052 = tan 16?20' = h/(65 + x), and
0.390219 = tan 21?19' = h/x.
Where h is height and x is the distance of the nearest object to the tree.
Which I see how you get, but then it says that, Distance x = 196'. Height h = 76.5'. And I keep trying to get that but fail miserably.
This is what I’ve got so far.
0.390219 = h/x
0.390219 * x = h
0.293052 = 0.390219 * x/(65 + x)
And I’m having trouble past here. I’ve tried,
0.293052 * (65 + x) = 0.390219 * x
And 0.293052 * (65 + x),
would equal
0.293052 * 65 + 0.293052 * x
0.293052 * 65 + 0.293052 * x = 0.390219 * x
But what I don’t see is won’t the two x’s cancel each other out?
I have a very strong feeling that I’m doing something very very foolish somewhere, and making a very silly mistake, but I’ve been looking at this problem for two hours so whatever the mistake is, I keep doing it. I’m very sorry if it’s something extremely obvious, those tend to be the things I get wrong in math most I’ve found.
Alright, first off, sorry, if I’m posting this under the wrong place, while I did get this problem under a trigonometry lesson, but I believe it’s the Algebra part of it, that I’m confused on.
The question is,
At two points 65 feet apart on the same side of a tree and in line with it, the angles of elevation of the top of the tree are 21° 19' and 16° 20'. Find the height of the tree.
Now it says under the answer, that you end up with the two equations,
0.293052 = tan 16?20' = h/(65 + x), and
0.390219 = tan 21?19' = h/x.
Where h is height and x is the distance of the nearest object to the tree.
Which I see how you get, but then it says that, Distance x = 196'. Height h = 76.5'. And I keep trying to get that but fail miserably.
This is what I’ve got so far.
0.390219 = h/x
0.390219 * x = h
0.293052 = 0.390219 * x/(65 + x)
And I’m having trouble past here. I’ve tried,
0.293052 * (65 + x) = 0.390219 * x
And 0.293052 * (65 + x),
would equal
0.293052 * 65 + 0.293052 * x
0.293052 * 65 + 0.293052 * x = 0.390219 * x
But what I don’t see is won’t the two x’s cancel each other out?
I have a very strong feeling that I’m doing something very very foolish somewhere, and making a very silly mistake, but I’ve been looking at this problem for two hours so whatever the mistake is, I keep doing it. I’m very sorry if it’s something extremely obvious, those tend to be the things I get wrong in math most I’ve found.
. It all makes sense now.