A mountain climber hikes 25.5 km from her base camp, going 20.0º north of east. On the second day, she walks 41.0 km in a direction 65.0º north of east, at which point she has reached a summit. Determine the magnitude and direction of her resultant displacement between the base camp and the second camp(Remember to analyze the two motions separately, and then add and use Pythagorean theorem for the resultant and trigonometry for the angle.)
As we can check from the angles that are in the positive region (0 to 90º)
all terms are positive. decomposing the vectors we have
25.5 sen(20) = 8.72 & 25.5 cos(20) = 23.96 for the first hike
41 sen(65) = 37.16 & 41 cos(65) = 17.32 for the second hike
adding we have
45.88 and 41.28
√( 45.88^{2} + 41.28^{2} ) = 61.72 miles this will be the total displacement
and the angle would be arctan ( 41.28/45.88) ≈ 42º north of east
Answer:
magnitude: 61.72 km
direction: 48° (north of east)
Step-by-step explanation:
Two vectors are formed, the first one starts at the origin, has a length of 25.5 km and form an angle of 20° with the positive x-axis; the second one starts when the first vector finish, has a length of 41 km and form an angle of 65° with a line which is parallel to the positive x-axis.
From trigonometry relationships we can decompose the vectors as follows
first hike
25.5sen(20°) = 8.72 km (north direction)
25.5cos(20°) = 23.96 km (east direction)
second hike
41sen(65°) = 37.16 km (north direction)
41cos(65°) = 17.32 km (east direction)
Then, the resultant has the next components:
8.72 km + 37.16 km = 45.88 km (north direction)
23.96 km + 17.32 km = 41.28 km (east direction)
From Pythagorean theorem
Resultant = sqrt(45.88^2 + 41.28^2) = 61.72 km
From trigonometry
angle = arctan(45.88/41.28) = 48° (north of east)