Can anyone help with displacement?

[mathcrzy]

A car is driven 135 km west and then 30 km southwest. What is the displacement of the car from the point of origin (magnitude and direction)?
km
° south of west

 

[G01]

What have you tried so far? Where is your work?

 

[mathcrzy]

nothing yet. that is the question from my physics book.

 

[G01]

I'm sorry, but the rules clearly state that you need to show some work to get homework help on this forum. You must know SOMETHING about the problem? What concepts are involved. What are your thoughts about a possible solution?

 

[Loren Booda]

Seems like a math problem involving trigonometry, not so much physics. It seems all you need is the Pythagorean theorem for displacement in km and angle in arctan.

 

[mathcrzy]

i don't know how to find the angle?

 

[Loren Booda]

Using the Pythagorean theorem, find the right triangle whose legs are respectively southward and westward oriented and whose hypotenuse connects origin with destination. Then utilize the arctan function with the legs. I'll leave this up to you.