Thread: Please Help!

Here is the problem I am having trouble with:

Driving down a mountain, Tom finds that he has descended
in elevation by the time he is 3.25 mi horizontally away from the
mountain. Find the slope of his descent to the nearest hundredth.

I'm sure it's probably a simple problem to set up and solve, but I can't seem to figure it out. It doesn't help that I do these classes online and they don't supply us with the whole math book, only the chapters we are working out of. More often than not, we come across problems that we have can't find the formula for. Our text books are very vague. I appreciate any help on this. I just need to know how to set it up and what steps to take in solving it. I will do the work myself.
Thank you,
Julie

Originally Posted by juliecooper

Here is the problem I am having trouble with:

Driving down a mountain, Tom finds that he has descended
in elevation by the time he is 3.25 mi horizontally away from the
mountain. Find the slope of his descent to the nearest hundredth.

I'm sure it's probably a simple problem to set up and solve, but I can't seem to figure it out. It doesn't help that I do these classes online and they don't supply us with the whole math book, only the chapters we are working out of. More often than not, we come across problems that we have can't find the formula for. Our text books are very vague. I appreciate any help on this. I just need to know how to set it up and what steps to take in solving it. I will do the work myself.
Thank you,
Julie

It can't be done in its current form. We need the height of the mountain.

-Dan

Sorry the whole thing didn't copy over. Here is the problem again:

Driving down a mountain, Tom finds that he has descended 1800 ft
in elevation by the time he is 3.25 mi horizontally away from the top of the
mountain. Find the slope of his descent to the nearest hundredth.

You will need both measurements to be in miles or both measurements to be in feet. I'm afraid I don't know the conversion rates.

If you mean gradient by slope then calculate (vertical distance)/(horizontal distance)

Hello, Julie!

Driving down a mountain, Tom finds that he has descended 1800 ft in elevation
by the time he is 3.25 mi horizontally away from the top of the mountain.
Find the slope of his descent to the nearest hundredth.

3.25 miles = 17,160 feet

Code:

      *
      :  *
      :     *
      :        *
 1800 :           *
      :              *
      :                 *
      :                    *
      * - - - - - - - - - - - *
               17,160

. . . . . . . .rise . . . . .-1800
Slope .= . ----- . = . --------- . = . -0.104895105 . ≈ . -0.10
. . . . . . . .run . . . . .17,160

Thank you for your help