a bird flies 3km west and then 4km south. find the resultant displacement of the bird
thats way too confusing
I DO NOT UNDERSTAND
To find the resultant displacement of the bird, we can use the Pythagorean theorem. The Pythagorean theorem states that in a right-angled triangle, the square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.
In this case, the bird has flown 3km to the west and 4km to the south. These two distances form the sides of a right-angled triangle. We can consider the westward direction as the horizontal side (adjacent side) and the southward direction as the vertical side (opposite side).
The square of the westward distance (3km) is 3^2 = 9 square km, and the square of the southward distance (4km) is 4^2 = 16 square km.
Now, we can apply the Pythagorean theorem to find the resultant displacement (the hypotenuse):
Resultant displacement = √(westward distance^2 + southward distance^2)
= √(9 + 16)
= √25
= 5 km
Therefore, the resultant displacement of the bird is 5 km.
luckily a right triangle with legs of 3 and 4 has a hypotenuse of 5 so there is no need to use c^2 = a^2 + b^2 to get the magnitude.
The cosine of the angle south of west is 3/5
so the angle is 53.13 degrees south of west
which is 180 + 53.13 degrees counterclockwise from the x axis
or 126.87 deg. clockwise from North on your compass rose.