Question in Description due to length

Question

a cable that is 21 feet long goes from the ground to the top of a building and forms an angle of 40.5 degrees, with the wall of the building. How many feet tall is the building?

Answer 1

Step 1) Collect What is Given

L = 21 ft

Θ = 40.5º

Step 2) Evaluate

We know the angle given is between the building and the rope. Therefore from trigonometry relationships,⇒ it will be adjacent over hypotenuse. Which means we will use the cosine function

cos(Θ) = adjacent/hypotenuse ⇒ hypotenuse * cos(Θ) = adjacent

Plugging numbers in:

adjacent = 21*cos(40.5°) 15.97 ft

Answer: 15.97 ft.