Question

A configuration of firewood is arranged in the shape of a triangle. If each piece of wood is 1 foot in length, what is the volume of the pile of wood?

Answer 1

This is difficult to visualize without a diagram. I'm guessing the base of the triangle has two sides of length 20ft and 14ft with an angle between them of 50 degrees. If so, the area of the triangular base can be found by:

 

Area = 1/2 x ab x sinC

 

where a and b are the sides, and C is the angle between them, so the area = 1/2 x 20 x 14 x sin55

 

Now that we have the area of the base, we can multiply it by the height to find the volume. I'm assuming the height is 1ft, as if the wood is arranged in a 1ft high triangular prism. So the volume = area x height.

 

If this doesn't seem right based on the diagram, you'll have to either describe the diagram, or try to get a picture.