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 $45^{\circ}$.