A person is standing at the edge of the water and looking out at the ocean. The height of the person's eyes above the water is h= 1.6 meters, and the radius of the earth is R= 6.38 *10^6 meters. (a) How far is it to the horizon? (b) Express (a) in miles.

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I hate these types of problems in physics, because I never know how to approach them.

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Answer 1 · 2017-09-14T22:00:46

I got #4518m=2.8"mi"#

I would use Pythagoras. From:
enter image source here

to get:

#(r+h)^2=r^2+d^2#

rearranging:

#d=sqrt((r+h)^2-r^2)#

#d=sqrt((6.38xx10^6+1.6)^2-(6.38xx10^6)^2)=4518m=2.8"mi"#