A person standing on the ground observes the top of a tree at an angle of elevation of 45 degrees. If the person is 10 meters away from the base of the tree, what is the height of the tree?
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The Deep Dive
To find the height of the tree, you can use basic trigonometry. When a person observes the top of the tree at a 45-degree angle and is standing 10 meters away from the base, you can visualize a right triangle where the height of the tree is the opposite side, and the distance from the person to the base of the tree is the adjacent side. Using the tangent function, which is the ratio of the opposite side to the adjacent side in a right triangle: \[ \tan(45^\circ) = \frac{\text{height of the tree}}{\text{distance from the tree base}} \] Since \(\tan(45^\circ) = 1\), we get: \[ 1 = \frac{\text{height}}{10} \] Thus, the height of the tree is: \[ \text{height} = 10 \text{ meters} \] So, the height of the tree is 10 meters!