Angle of elevation

Question

You are standing 200 feet away from the Statue of Liberty that is 200√3 feet tall and looking at the top of it. What is the angle of elevation from the ground (where you are standing) to the top of the Statue of Liberty?

Answer 1

Using the angle that you want, the height of the statue will be the opposite side while the distance will be the adjacent side. Making tan as the best trigonometric function to use:

 

tanΘ = opp/adj = (200√3)/200 = √3

 

Using inverse trigonometric function:

 

Θ = Tan^-1√3 = 60º