Betty by Gary Delainey and Gerry Rasmussen for November 16, 2022

Lots and lots of words

One must know how many inches there are in a foot. Or the slide rule could have scales for that? I only had metric ones.

If you cut it down, where is the top going to land?

Here’s a problem to solve… USE A RATIONAL UNIT SYSTEM! :D The tree is 19.812 meters.

65 feet

“Why would I care about the height of a tree” is more of a Siri question. But your mom gave you a non-idiotic problem to solve with your slipstick.

I did not get 65 feet. The man’s shadow is not as long as he is tall (48 inches vs 72 inches), therefore the tree can’t be taller than it’s shadow (43 feet, 4 inches or 520 inches), correct? The ratio of the man’s shadow to the man is .667, rounded, so the tree is .667 of 520 inches, which is 346.84 inches, or just under 29 feet…

As a plant ecologist doing field work, I had to estimate the height of trees fairly often.

RATIO TO PROPORTION 72in/48in = x/520in, so x=780in or 65ft

Multiply the tree shadow height by 1.5

When you drop the tree you will worry about its height.

Tree: 65ft. (780")