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-   Mathematics (https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=199)
-   -   This is really pecking my head in (https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/showthread.php?t=325485)

  • Mar 5, 2009, 05:52 PM
    albear
    this is really pecking my head in
    OK so the question to blame is
    if the triangle PQRR has vertices
    P(-1,2,3), Q(1,1,5), and R(0,4,5) then what is the angle at P (I already know the right answer but my working out doesn't lead to it and I can't see where I'm going wrong)

    OK

    so I work out PR and PQ to find the vectors so I can use the dot product
    PR=a= (1i,2j,2k) and PQ=b=(2i,-1j,2k)

    so using the dot product I get a.b = 4

    so I find ab=15? This is what I'm not entirely sure on

    therefore (a.b/ab)=cos(theta)

    so cos^-1(4/15) = theta

    I get 74.5 but that is the wrong answer

    the right answer I'm supposed to be getting is 63.6
    but as to how is a mystery to me :confused:
    any help is greatly appreciated
  • Mar 5, 2009, 06:10 PM
    albear

    Aha figured it out its k, on to the next problem :D
  • Mar 5, 2009, 07:37 PM
    galactus
    You know, another way to go about this is to notice this is an isosceles triangle.

    It has side lengths 3 and base = sqrt(10).

  • Mar 6, 2009, 08:02 AM
    albear

    Yea I don't know how to recognise an isocelese triangle from that :o
    Plus that's the way we've been shown in class so presumably that's how they want us to work them out :)
  • Mar 6, 2009, 08:09 AM
    galactus
    Use Pythagoras to find the distance between the points. Doing this, we see two of the distances are 3. That means it is isosceles.
  • Mar 6, 2009, 08:17 AM
    albear

    Reet gotchya :)

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