Question:
Find the angle of elevation of the sum (sun's altitude) when the length of the shadow of a vertical pole is equal to its height.
Solution:
Let be the angle of elevation of sun. Let
be the vertical pole of height
and
be the shadow of equal length
.
Here we have to find angle of elevation of sun.
We have the corresponding figure as follows
So we use trigonometric ratios to find the required angle.
In a triangle,
$\Rightarrow \quad \tan \theta=\frac{A B}{B C}$
$\Rightarrow \quad \tan \theta=\frac{h}{h}$
$\Rightarrow \quad \tan \theta=1$
$\Rightarrow \quad \theta=45^{\circ}$
Hence the angle of elevation of sun is $45^{\circ}$.