How do we find the height of something we cannot reach?
Shadow Math Magic
How do we find the height of something we cannot reach?
There's a tree in the park so tall its top seems to brush the clouds. You want to know how tall it is — but you can't fly up there with a tape measure, and the tree won't bend down to be measured. So how do we catch a number we can't reach? With a little cleverness and a long shadow, it turns out, we can.
Here's the secret weapon: shadows. On a sunny day, everything casts a shadow that stretches along the ground — and the ground is somewhere we CAN walk and measure. The Sun, hanging far away, sends its light in nearly parallel rays. That means at any single moment, every shadow in the park is being painted at the exact same slant.
