Question

I had this question for homework. "Suppose you first walk 12 meters in a direction 20° W of N, then you walk 20 meters in a direction of 40° S of W. How far are you from your starting point in meters?"

Originally, I had tried using pythagorean theorem where a was 12 and b was 20, but that was incorrect I am assuming because the triangle is not a right triangle.

I then tried the second method underneath the problem. We had discussed this method in class ( I attached the example done in class) and I believe it is the correct method to use. The answer that I got was also incorrect. I am thinking that it may be incorrect because the problem may assume North and East as the positive direction, therefore South and West would be in the negative directions and thus Ax, Bx, and By would be negative numbers instead of positive. Does this sound correct or is there an easier method?

o add 2 km 件 l. magn x1.2 a

Answer 1

By using coordinate system , solution would be easy