What is the paper's speed relative to the ground?

[aliciaw0]

The paper delivery boy tries to throw the paper into your narrow driveway without slowing down. His pickup truck travels at 5.00 mph, and he throws the paper at 16.0 mph just as the truck passes the driveway.

in what direction should he throw the paper in order for it to land in the driveway?

What is the paper's speed relative to the ground?

i know the vertical velocity is 16 and the horizontal is 5, but I am not sure how to relate them and find the angle.

and the papers speed relative to the ground is that simply 2v?

 

[zwtipp05]

Don't think of vertical and horizontal here. Think about east-west and north-south.

The East-west axis is the street and the north-south axis is the driveway. The truck is traveling along the east-west axis and the paper's is along the north-south axis.

 

[mathmike]

use vecters for this one

you have the vector [5,0] for the truck and [16,@] for the paper and you want the paper to land at [x,y].

 

[aliciaw0]

do u mean [5,0] and [0,16]

because i used vectors and i got the angle of 72.6 deg. and that was wrong

 

[whozum]

Your angle is with respect to the wrong axis then. Hes going to throw it almost straight horizontal with some slight compensation in the south direction.

 

[mathmike]

no the vectors are in polar coordinates