Question

A pole that is 2.7m tall casts a shadow that is 1.27m long. At the same time, a nearby tower casts a shadow that is 44.5m long. How tall is the tower? Round your answer to the nearest meter.

Answer 1

93.7 meters

Explanation:

We can use similar triangles to solve this problem. Similar triangles are triangles that have the same shape but possibly different sizes. They have proportional sides.

Let's denote the height of the tower as 'h'. According to the given information, the height of the pole is 2.7m and it casts a shadow that is 1.27m long. Similarly, the tower casts a shadow that is 44.5m long.

We can set up a proportion using the heights and shadows of the pole and the tower:

height of pole / length of shadow of pole = height of tower / length of shadow of tower

Plugging in the values we have:

2.7 / 1.27 = h / 44.5

Now we can cross-multiply and solve for 'h':

2.7 * 44.5 = 1.27 * h

119.15 = 1.27h

Dividing both sides by 1.27:

h = 119.15 / 1.27

h ≈ 93.7

So, the height of the tower is approximately 93.7 meters, rounded to the nearest meter.