Given that the hypotenuse of this right triangle is 25 cm long and that tan(Θ) = 3 Find the values of x and y, accurate to the nearest tenth. A) x ≈ 7.9; y ≈ 23.7 B) x ≈ 23.7; y ≈ 7.9 C) x ≈ 7.9; y ≈ 26.4 D) x ≈ 26.4; y ≈ 79.1
Accepted Solution
A:
The wording of this problem indicates that there was an illustration. Could you possibly share that illustration?
Working without an illustration:
If tan theta = 3, then tan theta = opp/adj = 3/1. This tells us that the opp side is 3 times as long as is the adj. side. Let x be the shorter side, i. e., let x represent the adjacent side; then y is the longer side and represents the opposite side.
Then y = 3x (the opp side is 3x the adj side in length).