Use similar triangles to solve. A person who is 5 feet tall is standing 132 feet from the base of a tree, and the tree casts a 144 foot shadow. The person's shadow is 12 feet in length. What is the height of the tree?
We can think of all the rays of sun as parallel line,
the tree as vertical line segments and the ground as a perfectly
flat horizontal plane.
The person, the person's shadow, and the sun ray from the
top of the person's head to the top of the shadow from a right
triangle.
The tree, its shadow, and the sun ray from the top of the tree to
the tip of its shadow also form a right triangle.
Those two triangles are similar to each other because the angles of
the sun rays with the ground are congruent.
Get Answers For Free
Most questions answered within 1 hours.