Trigonometry bearings confuses me. I only solved right and obtuse triangles using pythagorean, sines and cosines laws?
2 Answers
Please see below.
Explanation:
What are we trying to find?
How far west of the origin she is.
What is the in the picture?
The length of the line segment from Origin to A
Which is one leg of a right triangle.
I only know one side, so I can't use the Pythagorean Theorem.
Do I know the non-right angles?
After I figure those out, can I find the unknown?
She is
Explanation:
There is a difference between 'west' and 'due west.
All bearings between 180° and 360° are west of (meaning on the 'western (ie left) side of) the NS line and all bearings between 000° and 180° are east of (meaning on the eastern side )of the NS line. Due west means directly west (on a bearing of 270°)
Let's refer to the intersection of the NS and EW line
The required distance is
In
Use trig to find the length of