Estimating Angles of a Box Diagonal

  • Thread starter Thread starter kwal0203
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Angles Box
kwal0203
Messages
69
Reaction score
0

Homework Statement



Estimate to the nearest degree, the angles that a diagonal of a box with dimensions 10cm x 15cm x 25cm makes with the edges of the box.

Homework Equations



cos\theta =\frac{u\cdot v}{\left \| u \right \|\left \| v \right \|}

The Attempt at a Solution



For the angle between the diagonal vector and the edge with the 10cm side:

u=(10,0,0)
v=(10,15,25)

cos\theta =\frac{(10,0,0)\cdot (10,15,25)}{\sqrt100\sqrt{100+225+625}}
cos\theta =\frac{100}{10\sqrt{950}}

cos\theta =\frac{10}{\sqrt{950}}

Theta = ~71 degrees?

thanks, any help appreciated!
 
Last edited:
Physics news on Phys.org
Your denominator should be the product of the lengths of the two vectors. Vector u has length 10, right? Where's that? Vector v has length sqrt(950), why did you edit that to 100sqrt(850)?
 
Vargo said:
Your denominator should be the product of the lengths of the two vectors. Vector u has length 10, right? Where's that? Vector v has length sqrt(950), why did you edit that to 100sqrt(850)?

Oh yeah, I had it right the first time. But if I do that then I can't carry out the next step.. how would you proceed in this question?
 
I edited it now, does it look right?
 
Yeah, that looks right.
 
There are two things I don't understand about this problem. First, when finding the nth root of a number, there should in theory be n solutions. However, the formula produces n+1 roots. Here is how. The first root is simply ##\left(r\right)^{\left(\frac{1}{n}\right)}##. Then you multiply this first root by n additional expressions given by the formula, as you go through k=0,1,...n-1. So you end up with n+1 roots, which cannot be correct. Let me illustrate what I mean. For this...
Back
Top