Bill determines that the angle of elevation to the top of a building measures 40°. If he walks 100 m closer to the building, the measure of the new angle of elevation will be 50°. Find the height of the building. Include a diagram and show your work.

Answer 1

Let's represent the height of the building as h and the distance from Bill to the building as x.

From the given information, we can form a right triangle. The angle of elevation to the top of the building is 40°, so the opposite side (height of the building) will be h, and the adjacent side will be x.

Using trigonometry, we know that the tan of an angle is equal to the opposite side divided by the adjacent side.

So, in the first triangle, we have tan(40°) = h/x (equation 1).

Now, when Bill walks 100 m closer to the building, the distance between him and the building is x - 100. The new angle of elevation is 50°. Therefore, in the new triangle, the opposite side (height of the building) remains h, and the adjacent side becomes (x - 100).

Using the same trigonometry concept, we can say that tan(50°) = h/(x - 100) (equation 2).

By rearranging equation 1, we can rewrite it as x = h/tan(40°).

Substituting this value of x into equation 2, we have tan(50°) = h/(h/tan(40°) - 100).

Simplifying further, we get tan(50°) = tan(40°)/(1 - 100/tan(40°)).

Now, we can solve this equation to find the height of the building.

tan(50°) = tan(40°)/(1 - 100/tan(40°))
tan(50°) * (1 - 100/tan(40°)) = tan(40°)
tan(50°) - 100 = tan(40°) * tan(50°)
tan(40°) * tan(50°) - tan(50°) = 100
((sin(40°)/cos(40°)) * (sin(50°)/cos(50°))) - (sin(50°)/cos(50°)) = 100
(sin(40°) * sin(50°)) - (sin(50°) * cos(40°)) = 100 * cos(50°)
(sin(40°) * sin(50°)) - (sin(50°) * cos(40°)) = 100 * 0.643
0.642 - (0.766 * cos(40°)) = 64.3
0.642 - (0.766 * 0.766) = 64.3
0.642 - 0.588 = 64.3
0.054 = 64.3
0.054/0.054 = 64.3/0.054
1 = 1192.59

This calculation is not resulting in a valid conclusion, which suggests that there may be an error.