Help finding length knowing angles

Question

The angle of elevation of the sun is 64. A telephone pole that is inclined at an angle of 9 degrees (with the vertical) casts a shadow of 5.25 m on the ground. Calculate the approximate length of the post.

Answer 1

It is best to draw a picture for these problems. If you do so you will see a right triangle with the post as the opposite side, and the distance to the post as the adjacent side. That means that you can use tangent as the relationship to solve this problem.

tan 64 = opp/adj

tan 64 = P/5.25

P = 5.25 * tan 64 = 10.76 meters

So the height of the pole is 10.76 meters