Q:

A hiker walks 9.4 miles at an angle of 60° south of west. Find the west and south components of the walk. Round your answers to the nearest tenth

Accepted Solution

A:
Using trigonometric relations, we will see that the components are:East component = cos(60°)*9.4 mi = 4.7 miSouth component = sin(60°)*9.4 mi = 8.14 mi.How to find the components?Think of this like in a right triangle. We have a hypotenuse of 9.4 miles, such that we have an angle of 60°, where the adjacent cathetus is the east component and the opposite cathetus is the south component.Then using the correspondent trigonometric relations, we get:East component = cos(60°)*9.4 mi = 4.7 miSouth component = sin(60°)*9.4 mi = 8.14 mi.If you want to learn more about trigonometry, you can read: