High School

Find the distance between the tips of the arms of a pair of dividers, where each arm is 9.8 cm long, and the angle between the arms is 62 degrees.

Answer :

Final answer:

The problem involves finding the distance between the points of dividers by forming a law of cosines formula based on their arm lengths and the angle between them. This distance can be solved using the trigonometric tool known as the law of cosines.

Explanation:

To find the distance between the points of a pair of dividers with arms 9.8 cm long, when the angle between the arms is 62 degrees, we can use the law of cosine in trigonometry. The Law of Cosines is useful for finding a side of a triangle when we know all three sides, and it states: c² = a² + b² - 2abcos(C), where a, b and c are the sides of the triangle and C is the included angle.

Here, the lengths of the two arms of the dividers represent the sides of a triangle (a and b) and both are 9.8 cm. The angle between them (C) is 62 degrees. So the distance between the points (side c) can be calculated as follows:

c = sqrt{9.8² + 9.8² - 2*9.8*9.8*cos(62º)}

This should give us the correct distance in cm.

Learn more about Law of Cosines here:

https://brainly.com/question/32188599

#SPJ11