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Trig Problem!!!

2 replies

summer111 · 20/05/2011 18:36

PLEASE HELP ME.
'Lenny the leopard was out hunting one day and set off from his favourite tree on a bearing of 050 degrees for a distance of 20km to his favourite hunting ground of zebras, antelopes and wildebeest, as it has a particularly large watering hole.
The task is to discover how far North and how far East Lenny has travelled.'

I've tried multiple times to figure this out, but as hard as I've tried I can't seem to get the correct answer. I've used triganometry to work out the two distances, but when I use pythagorus to check my answers, they don't add up Confused Any help would be much appreciated, as soon as possible please!
Thank you!

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Madsometimes · 20/05/2011 19:16

I'm not a maths genius, but I worked out the answer using trig and double checked it with pythagorus, and give or take rounding errors they tallied. Are you sure your calculator is set to degrees and not radians?

North 20cos50=12.86
East 20
sin50=15.32 both to 2 dp

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summer111 · 20/05/2011 19:32

That's great thank you! I had those answers but rounded them incorrectly, thanks a million for all the help! :)

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