Question

explain why you were unable to use the law of cosines directly to determine the distance from home plate to the right field fence in Angel Stadium of Anaheim.

https://prnt.sc/119z4f9

Answer 1

the initial question was to determine the distance x from home plate to the right center field fence.

And i had to use the law of sin to find the answer

Answer 2

dude i play sports but i dont know this lol

Answer 3

i think u have to find the radius

Answer 4

right angles are very common in baseball

Answer 5

Because to use cos 2 sides of the triangle and one angle opposite one of the two sides have to be given, though in this case only one side and two angles are given, with one angle being opposite to the known side.

Would this be correct?

Answer 6

sounds correct to me

Answer 7

the angle opposite the side that you're looking for***

and since we don't know the angle that's opposite of side 'x' we cannot use the law of cosines directly

Answer 8

However, you could have still used law of cosine so this is a bad question but I guess this is a more "indirect" way to use law of cosines?

\( 339.4^2 = 90^2 + x^2 - 2(90)(x) cos(63.4^o)\)

it would just be kind of messy lol

Answer 9

(but for the purposes of this question, ignore my last comment and just make the edit that I suggested in my first reply)

Answer 10

actually, upon reading your answer completely, there's another error

law of cosines- you need two sides and the angle to the side opposite that you're calculating

and they have given you two sides but not the angle opposite the side that you're looking for

there are no two angles, they only gave you one angle