Chapter 6.9, Problem 7PPS

To determine

To find:length of a person’s shadow be if the person is 5 feet 3 inches tall.

Answer to Problem 7PPS

The length of a person’s shadow is $2$ ft.

Explanation of Solution

Given information:

The height of a roller coaster is 157.5 feet. If the roller coaster’s shadow is 60 feet long.

Calculation:

Height of the coaster is $157.5$ ft.

Shadow of it is $60$ ft.

Height of the person is $5\text{ft}\text{3}\text{in}$ .

Triangles are as shown below.

Let $x$ is the required length.

Both are similar triangles.

  $\frac{x}{60}=\frac{5.25}{157.5}$

Apply the cross multiplication and solve.

  $\begin{array}{c}157.5\times x=60\times 5.25\\ x=\frac{60\times 5.25}{157.5}\\ x=2\end{array}$

Hence, the length of a person’s shadow is $2$ ft.