Question

Help!

A superhero flies 160 m from the top of a
tall building at an angle of 20 ◦ below the
horizontal.
What is the horizontal component of the
superhero’s displacement? Draw the vectors
to scale on a graph to determine the answer.
Answer in units of m. Your answer must
be within ± 5.0%

What is the vertical component of the superhero’s
displacement?
Answer in units of m. Your answer must
be within ± 5.0%

I have the first part, the answer is 150.612, but when I do 160cos(20) and get ~54.32 or around, it says that it is wrong, and I only have one try to get it right now.
Ty!

Answer 1

Is our superhero ascending or descending? Wouldn't that affect the sign of the vertical comp of his trajectory?

Answer 2

I think this wants you to make a decently accurate graph of the vectors and measure the components off the graph.
but if you just do the trig calculation, then 160cos(20) is about 54.7232 , so not sure if that small error matters, it says you can be 5% off

Answer 3

Is that 54.7 a positive or a negative quantity? @lierallyjian?

Answer 4

well if you call "up" the +y direction, and East as the plus x. then yeah, what mathmale just said

Answer 5

Here's the beginning of the problem statement:

"A superhero flies 160 m from the top of a
tall building at an angle of 20 ◦ below the
horizontal."

You must break down this vector into its vertical and horiz. components. Superhero flies 160 meters away from the building and downward. The horiz. comp. is (I assume) 160 meters times the cosine of 20 degrees.

How do you find the vertical component? Because "A superhero flies 160 m from the top of a
tall building at an angle of 20 ◦ below the
horizontal." the vertical comp. MUST be negative. What is it?