Choose one of the following professions (or another one that interests you) and describe how a person with that job would use one (or more) of the concepts for trigonometry that you learned during this unit MUST BE SIMPLE

construction worker
civil engineer
air traffic controller
car mechanic
astronomer

1 answer

Let's choose the civil engineer profession.

A civil engineer often uses trigonometry to calculate angles and distances when designing structures like bridges, roads, and buildings.

For example, when building a bridge, a civil engineer might need to determine the angle at which the bridge should be built to optimize support and stability. They could use the concept of sine, cosine, and tangent.

If they know the height of the bridge and need to find the length of the diagonal support beam, they could set up a right triangle where:

  • The height (vertical side) is one side.
  • The length of the diagonal support beam is the hypotenuse.
  • The distance along the ground from the base of the beam to the wall of the bridge is the other side.

Using the sine function, they can express it like this:

\[ \text{sine(angle)} = \frac{\text{opposite side}}{\text{hypotenuse}} \]

From this, they can calculate the necessary measurements to ensure the bridge is built safely and precisely.