If one has a 24 ft high house in Port Dover how long will the shadow it casts be at 6 pm on July 1st?

Answer 1

You will need to determine the latitude and longitude of Port Dover. Google Earth can help you with that.

Then you will need to consult an astronomy program such as Stellarium to determine the elevation angle of the Sun at that moment.

After that, it's just basic geometry. The vertical elevation of the house is 24 feet, and the angle with the ground is effectively 90 degrees, making the calculation the solution to a right triangle.

If you want to calculate the length of the shadow over a sloped meadow, you will need to add or subtract the slope angle of the ground from 90 degrees. This also takes the problem out of geometry and into trigonometry, and the math is a little more challenging.

See the links below for a couple of pointers in how this works.

Answer 2

Assuming the sun is directly overhead at noon, the shadow cast by the 24 ft high house at 6 pm on July 1st would be approximately 24 ft long. The length of the shadow is equal to the height of the object when the sun's rays are at a low angle.