An escalator in a department store is to carry people a vertical distance of 18 feet between floors. How long is the escalator if it makes and angle of 40° with the floor? Round to 1 decimal place.
Drawing out the triangle, we get the one below. We can use the trigonometric ratio of tan to solve this problem. [tex]tan40= \frac{18}{x} [/tex] [tex]x= \frac{18}{tan40} [/tex] x=21.5