What is the degree?

Question

A guy wire 1628 feet long is attached to the top of a tower. When pulled taut, it touches level ground 707 feet from the base of the tower. What angle does the wire make with the ground? Express your answer using degree measure rounded to one decimal place.

Answer 1

Visualize a right triangle with a base of 707 feet and a hypotenuse of 1628 feet. Using trigonometry, we know that the cosine of the angle between the base and the hypotenuse is 707/1628. We can use a calculator to get the inverse cosine of 707/1628 to give us the angle.