Introduction to the project (Provided by the school):

Mathematics Project Competition for Secondary Schools (2002-2003)

School: HKSYC & IA Wong Tai Shan Memorial College

Title of Project: The High Secret

Supervisor: Ms Kamy TSUI

Members: W. F. CHU (2D)

                 S. Y. HO (2D)

                 P. Y. LAM (2D)

                 K. K. WONG (2D)

                 C. K. WONG (2D)

The title of our project is “The High Secret”, but the main theme is on the word “High”.

‘Height’ is important in our lives, in mathematics, and even in human culture. Since the ancient times, ‘height’ has been a symbol of ‘high-class’. For example, in the medieval times in Europe, people liked to build tall buildings as they believed that the taller the buildings were, the nearer they were to the Gods. Nowadays, buildings are built taller and taller. But have you ever thought about how the height of these buildings can be measured? In this project, we try to use different methods to measure heights of buildings. And the “subject experiment” is our school.

Generally when we measure the height of an object around us, we use tools such as rulers. However, when we measure the height of a building, the situation will be totally different. So, apart from direct measurement, we also need to adopt trigonometry to get the height of our school indirectly.

There are both advantages and disadvantages in every method. Therefore, for every method we use, we have to consider the assumptions of the method, the environmental limitations, limitation in measurement, the errors of measurement and the ways to improve the method.