Homework Help: maths

Posted by christine on Monday, June 6, 2011 at 8:28pm.

Starting from one oasis, a camel walks 25km in a direction 30 degrees south of west and then walks 30km toward the north to a second oasis. What distance separates the two oases?

maths - Reiny, Monday, June 6, 2011 at 10:12pm
I made a quick sketch and found the angle between the two paths to be 60°
So it becomes a simple Cosine Law

x^2 = 25^2 + 30^2 - 2(25)(30)cos60
= 775
x = √775 = 27.84 appr.
maths - MathMate, Monday, June 6, 2011 at 10:13pm
Take x as east, and y as north, and the starting position as (0,0).

The coordinates of the first stop are
(-25cos(30°), -25sin(30°)
The second stop is simply 30km towards +y, or
(-25cos(30°), 30-25sin(30°)
=(21.65,17.5)

Use Pythagoras theorem to calculate the distance from the original point (0,0).

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