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Help with a Trig Problem please, ty

tan28 degrees = h/ (h/tan29 deg) +1500 solve for H - the answer is supposed to be 19,562 but i keep ending up with 944.066 and i cant figure out any other way to solve for H

April 7, 2014

10 Comments • Newest first

SenpaiPls

@GarrettsHot Sorry, this is probably late but... I multiplied both sides by [(h/tan29)+1500], then just plugged in 0.531709 for tan28, and 0.554309 for tan29.
h = (.531709h/.554309) + (1500 x .531709)

Edit: then solved for h
Edit2: tan28 and tan29 were rounded cuz I'm not typing all of it out

Reply April 7, 2014 - edited
Masinko

If you're using a calculator, maybe you're in Radians instead of degrees.

Reply April 7, 2014 - edited
GarrettsHot

[quote=SenpaiPls]Your original equation should've worked; you probably just entered something in wrong. :o
Well, assuming tan28 degrees = h/ (h/tan29 deg) +1500 was supposed to be tan28 = h/[(h/tan29)+1500][/quote]

yes that was it, i couldnt figure out what i was doing wrong i solved it 4 times kept getting the same answer

@SenpaiPls What i might have done wrong was i multiplied everything by tan29 to get rid of that second fraction, i tried to think of a different way but that was all i could think of, can you explain how you might of gone about it?

Reply April 7, 2014 - edited
SenpaiPls

Your original equation should've worked; you probably just entered something in wrong. :o
Well, assuming tan28 degrees = h/ (h/tan29 deg) +1500 was supposed to be tan28 = h/[(h/tan29)+1500]

Reply April 7, 2014 - edited
GarrettsHot

[quote=djmaxaaron]Hi garret working hard i see [/quote]

hahaha hey aaron and @SpiritBag hey thank you that worked!

Reply April 7, 2014 - edited
djmaxaaron

Hi garret working hard i see

Reply April 7, 2014 - edited
SpiritBag

@GarrettsHot

Do the system the other way around. Solve both equations for h and use substitution to find the value for a, then plug that back into the original equation to get h.

Reply April 7, 2014 - edited
GarrettsHot

Well here let me right out the actual problem: A hiker measures the angle of elevation to a mountain peak in the distance at 28 degrees. Moving 1,500 feet closer on a level surface, the angle of elevation is measured to be 29 degrees. How much higher is the mountain peak than the hiker?:
My teacher told us its a system of two equations with 2 unknowns, and that we use substitution to solve it.

I have these two equations: tan29 degrees = h/a where a is the distance from where he moved to the base of the mountain
and tan28 degrees = h/a+1500 : where a + 1500 is the distance before the hiker moved closer

to get my current equation i solved A to be a = h/tan29 degrees: and i substituted that into the equation h/a + 1500

@SpiritBag

Reply April 7, 2014 - edited
SpiritBag

You sure you typed the problem correctly? Your h's just cancel each other out and the problem doesn't make any sense how you have it now.

Reply April 7, 2014 - edited