asked 23.4k views
2 votes
A Siamese cat named Sam is 6 m from a catnip plant. The Siamese cat is 5 m from a Himalayan cat named Han. The sightlines from Sam to Han and from Sam to the plant form an angle of 108. How far is Han from the catnip plant?

1 Answer

7 votes

The given information can be represented by the diagram below

From the given, and the nature of triangle given, we will use cosine formula

This is


\begin{gathered} h^2=6^2+5^2-2*6*5cos108^0 \\ h^2=36+25-60(-cos(180-108)^0) \\ h^2=61-60(-cos72^0) \end{gathered}
\begin{gathered} h^2=61+60*0.3090 \\ h^2=61+18.541 \\ h^2=79.541 \\ h=√(79.541) \\ h=8.919m \\ h\approx8.9m \end{gathered}

A Siamese cat named Sam is 6 m from a catnip plant. The Siamese cat is 5 m from a-example-1
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