asked 180k views
0 votes
A boat is sailing east at mph. if the wind is blowing northwest at 10 mph, What is the resultant and direction of the boat?

1 Answer

4 votes

Answer:

To find the resultant velocity and direction of the boat, we need to use vector addition.

Let's consider the velocity of the boat as a vector in the east direction, with a magnitude of mph. We can represent this vector as follows:

v1 = mph, due east

Now let's consider the velocity of the wind as a vector in the northwest direction, with a magnitude of 10 mph. We can represent this vector as follows:

v2 = 10 mph, 45 degrees north of west

To find the resultant velocity, we can add the two vectors together using vector addition. We can break each vector into its x and y components as follows:

v1x = mph, v1y = 0

v2x = -7.07 mph, v2y = 7.07 mph

The negative sign in front of v2x indicates that the wind is blowing in the opposite direction to the boat's motion.

Now we can add the x and y components separately to get the resultant vector:

vx = v1x + v2x = 6.93 mph, east of north

vy = v1y + v2y = 7.07 mph, north

The magnitude of the resultant velocity is:

|v| = sqrt(vx^2 + vy^2) = sqrt((6.93 mph)^2 + (7.07 mph)^2) = 9.99 mph

The direction of the resultant velocity can be found by taking the inverse tangent of the ratio of the y-component to the x-component:

θ = tan^(-1)(vy/vx) = 45.03 degrees north of east

Therefore, the resultant velocity of the boat is 9.99 mph, 45.03 degrees north of east.

Step-by-step explanation:

answered
User Garrett Albright
by
8.3k points