Question

1. You need to dig a tunnel. You begin at the surface of the ground. The tunnel slopes downward for 83 meters. The final depth below ground is 52 meters. Find the angle of depression of the tunnel's descent. Round your answer to the nearest tenth. Draw a diagram to illustrate your problem.​

Answer 1

Answer: 38.8°

Explanation:

See the attached diagram:

From it we can tell that the tunnel forms a right triangle, with the length of a leg and the hypotenuse given. We can use the sine function to easily answer this, (letting θ be the angle we need to find)

sinθ = 52/83

.: θ = arcsin(52/83)

(Note: arcsin is the inverse of the sine function)

.: θ ≅ 38.8°