Problem: How do you solve this problem?
How to solve?
A 6-foot tall man is standing near a tree on level ground as shown in the picture above. If the man's shadow is 4 feet long, how many feet tall is the tree?
We don't have the picture, but solving the problem would be simple if we had one piece
of vital information. That is the length of the tree's shadow.
The ratio of the man's shadow to his height is the same as the ratio of
the tree's shadow to the tree's height.
The ratio of the man's shadow to the man's height is 4/6. That means that
the man's height is 1.5 * the length of the shadow.
Therefore, whatever the length of the tree's shadow is, the tree's height is
1.5 times that length. If the shadow were 20 feet long, the tree would be
1.5 * 20 ft = 30 ft.
Tell us the length of the tree's shadow and we can calculate the tree's height.