Homework - 2/7/18 Sumnima Rai Core 2

A farmer needs to find the width of a river that flows through his pasture. He places a stake (Stake 1) on one side of the river across from a tree stump. He
then places a second stake 50 yards to the right of the first stake (Stake 2). The angle formed by the line from Stake 1 to Stake 2 and the line from Stake 2 to
the tree stump is 72o. Find the width of the river to the nearest yard. Show you work and/or explain how you got your answer.

Solving:
Step 1: You know one angles (besides the right angle) and its
adjacent length. You are trying to solve for the opposite length of
the angle 72o. Therefore, you would use the trig ratio, tangent.

Step 2: You begin solving the equation and isolating x, the width of
the river, by multiplying 50 to both sides.
Step 1: tan(72o) =
Step 3: After multiplying 50 to both sides, you have x equal to 50
x/50
x multiplied to the tangent of 72o.
Step 2: 50 (tan(72o))

7 = 50 (x/50) Step 4: Solve the equation using your calculator. The width of the
50 2
y o river is approximately 154 yards wide.
Step 3: 50 tan(72o) =

x
Rounding:
Step 4: x ≈ 154 yards
Step 1: tan(70o) = x/50
If you’re building a bridge across, how precise would
Step 2: 50 (tan(70o)) = 50
you want to be?
(x/50) When building a bridge, I would be very precise on
x
my measurement. I can’t say what I would round the
Step 3: 50 tan(70o) = x
measurement to as rounding 7.413 miles down to the
70 Step 4: x ≈ 137 yards
nearest tenth would cause the bridge to be to short
50 y o
and would impact building the bridge too much. I
would round the measurement, if it were meters, to
the nearest tenth of a meter. If the measurement was in kilometers, I would round the measurement to the
nearest ten thousandth of a kilometer.