Precalculus (6th Edition) Blitzer

Published by Pearson
ISBN 10: 0-13446-914-3
ISBN 13: 978-0-13446-914-0

Chapter 6 - Section 6.2 - The Law of Cosines - Exercise Set - Page 730: 35

Answer

$A\approx145^\circ, B\approx13^\circ, C\approx22^\circ$

Work Step by Step

Step 1. Using the distance formula with the given numbers, we have $a=BC=\sqrt {(3+3)^2+(4+1)^2}\approx7.8$, $b=AC=\sqrt {(3)^2+(-1)^2}\approx3.2$, $c=AB=\sqrt {(-3)^2+(4)^2}=5$ Step 2. Using the Law of Cosines, we have $a^2=b^2+c^2-2bc\ cosA$ or $7.8^2=3.2^2+5^2-2(3.2)(5)cosA$ which gives $cosA\approx-0.8222$ and $A=acos(-0.8222)\approx145^\circ$ Step 3. Using the Law of Sines, we have $\frac{sinC}{c}=\frac{sinA}{a}$ and $sinC=\frac{5sin(145^\circ)}{7.8}\approx0.3677$ thus $C=asin(0.3677)\approx22^\circ$ and $B\approx180^\circ-145^\circ-22^\circ=13^\circ$ Step 4. The solutions are $A\approx145^\circ, B\approx13^\circ, C\approx22^\circ$
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