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As a test of orienteering skills, your physics class holds
Chapter 1, Problem 1.67(choose chapter or problem)
As a test of orienteering skills, your physics class holds a contest in a large, open field. Each contestant is told to travel 20.8 m due north from the starting point, then 38.0 m due east, and finally 18.0 m in the direction 33.0 west of south. After the specified displacements, a contestant will find a silver dollar hidden under a rock. The winner is the person who takes the shortest time to reach the location of the silver dollar. Remembering what you learned in class, you run on a straight line from the starting point to the hidden coin. How far and in what direction do you run?
Questions & Answers
QUESTION:
As a test of orienteering skills, your physics class holds a contest in a large, open field. Each contestant is told to travel 20.8 m due north from the starting point, then 38.0 m due east, and finally 18.0 m in the direction 33.0 west of south. After the specified displacements, a contestant will find a silver dollar hidden under a rock. The winner is the person who takes the shortest time to reach the location of the silver dollar. Remembering what you learned in class, you run on a straight line from the starting point to the hidden coin. How far and in what direction do you run?
ANSWER:Step 1 of 3
Given that contestants starts travelling \(20.8 \mathrm{~m}\) towards north, then \(38 \mathrm{~m}\) towards east and \(18 \mathrm{~m}\) in the direction of \(33^{\circ}\) west of south.
We have to find the shortest path from the starting point to the final point.
This can be done by taking north as the \(Y\) axis and east as \(X\) axis, and then drawing vectors according to the given information. The resultant vector will be the shortest path.