MHB Math Exam Woe: Unsolvable Bearing Question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jayden1
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Bearing Exam
AI Thread Summary
The math exam featured a problematic question involving bearings from two lookout points, A and B, to a campfire. The bearings provided led to confusion, as they seemed contradictory, particularly regarding the relative positions of A and B. Participants expressed frustration over the ambiguity of the term "bearing," which is typically measured clockwise from north. Many felt the question was poorly constructed and potentially unanswerable based on the information given. Overall, the consensus is that the question should be reevaluated for clarity and fairness.
Jayden1
Messages
19
Reaction score
0
So basically, this one question messed me up in my maths exam today. Everything we went over yesterday concerning tangent lines/derivetives I went pretty well in.

The question was. There are two lookout points. A and B. There is a campirefire at a bearing of 40 degrees from A. From point B, the campfire is at a bearing of 20 degrees. From point B, A is at a bearing of 120 degrees. A and B are 10 km apart. Find the distance between A and the campfire.

I tried and tried, but I was unable to do it. Probably because I don't know what bearing is. I thought it meant in relation to north.EDIT: This seems rubbish. Taking these bearings is impossible. If A is located to the left of B, there is no way A's bearing will be more than Bs bearing (in relation to the campfire)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Mathematics news on Phys.org
Jayden said:
So basically, this one question messed me up in my maths exam today. Everything we went over yesterday concerning tangent lines/derivetives I went pretty well in.

The question was. There are two lookout points. A and B. There is a campirefire at a bearing of 40 degrees from A. From point B, the campfire is at a bearing of 20 degrees. From point B, A is at a bearing of 120 degrees. A and B are 10 km apart. Find the distance between A and the campfire.

I tried and tried, but I was unable to do it. Probably because I don't know what bearing is. I thought it meant in relation to north.EDIT: This seems rubbish. Taking these bearings is impossible. If A is located to the left of B, there is no way A's bearing will be more than Bs bearing (in relation to the campfire)

Agreed, the given data is impossible.

CB
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Either I read it wrong, or the examiners will need to change the marks. The only thing I can think of is that maybe they meant take the bearing from C, not A/B. But I am pretty sure this is what it said.
 
Jayden said:
So basically, this one question messed me up in my maths exam today. Everything we went over yesterday concerning tangent lines/derivetives I went pretty well in.

The question was. There are two lookout points. A and B. There is a campirefire at a bearing of 40 degrees from A. From point B, the campfire is at a bearing of 20 degrees. From point B, A is at a bearing of 120 degrees. A and B are 10 km apart. Find the distance between A and the campfire.

I tried and tried, but I was unable to do it. Probably because I don't know what bearing is. I thought it meant in relation to north.EDIT: This seems rubbish. Taking these bearings is impossible. If A is located to the left of B, there is no way A's bearing will be more than Bs bearing (in relation to the campfire)

I believe this is impossible however you define bearing here, but I suspect the term is ambiguous. I understand the term bearing without qualification to be an angle measured from N clockwise. I think both the reference direction and the sense of the angle may be different in different contexts.

CB
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Well either way. It's far too ambiguous for an exam question if you ask me.
 
Suppose ,instead of the usual x,y coordinate system with an I basis vector along the x -axis and a corresponding j basis vector along the y-axis we instead have a different pair of basis vectors ,call them e and f along their respective axes. I have seen that this is an important subject in maths My question is what physical applications does such a model apply to? I am asking here because I have devoted quite a lot of time in the past to understanding convectors and the dual...
Insights auto threads is broken atm, so I'm manually creating these for new Insight articles. In Dirac’s Principles of Quantum Mechanics published in 1930 he introduced a “convenient notation” he referred to as a “delta function” which he treated as a continuum analog to the discrete Kronecker delta. The Kronecker delta is simply the indexed components of the identity operator in matrix algebra Source: https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/what-exactly-is-diracs-delta-function/ by...
Back
Top