Posted: 11/19/2013 6:57:42 AM EDT
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This is embarassing and I fully expect to be mocked for my math skills but what is the measure of the circled angle in this diagram? I came up with 35.54 degrees but a co-worker is arguing it should be closer to 25 degrees.  Sorry for the crude drawing. It obviously not to scale but we know that the top is 10" and the long side is 20" and the shorter side is 6" to where it starts to angle down. We also know that the top two angles are 90 degrees each. On a side note I really need to brush up on my math skills.  |
| Ignore the original shape and take out the rectangle. You have to isolate the triangle. We know the triangle has one side that is 14" long and one side that is 10" long. We have one 90 degree angle. From there you need to brush off your trigonometry skills ( sine, cosine) to calculate the other angles |
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Quoted:
35.54 Yup. OP, a good reality check you can use to let you gauge your answer is that you know the angle needs to be "close" to 45degrees since two sides of the triangle are "close" to the same length (10" vs 14"). If it were 25degrees as your friend says, then one side should be much farther in length from the other (6.5" vs 14" to be exact). |
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Quoted:On a side note I really need to brush up on my math skills. Brush up??? That's a ridiculously simple trig problem. Either you want to have the skill or not. BTW, how critical was accuracy to that problem? Why not just get out a protractor and measure it? |
| I used to play trivia on Tuesday nights at a bar and they would ask ridiculously easy math problems. No problems like this because you need a calculator to perform arctangent, but usually order of operations type stuff. It was sad to see how many people/teams would miss those questions......like 80%. |
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Quoted:
Brush up??? That's a ridiculously simple trig problem. Either you want to have the skill or not. BTW, how critical was accuracy to that problem? Why not just get out a protractor and measure it? Quoted:
Quoted:On a side note I really need to brush up on my math skills. Brush up??? That's a ridiculously simple trig problem. Either you want to have the skill or not. BTW, how critical was accuracy to that problem? Why not just get out a protractor and measure it? Haha, I got it right.
I don't have the piece in front of me I was only relayed those dimensions. I was confident in my original answer but my co-worker was adamant that it should be closer to 25 degrees but based on the dimensions given I don't know how he arrived at that answer. |
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Kids today sure have it easy.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=trig+calculator Try learning trig in the woods by using a Clinometer, logger's tape, calculator, pencil and some write in the rain paper, oh yeah, while it's pouring down rain in Western WA.
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