Question

A person drives 20 miles north and 45 miles east. What is the angle of the resultant straight to their destination?

Answer 1

Let us take east and north as the positive x and y-axes should the motion be plotted in a cartesian plane. Thus, the x value is 45 miles and the y value is 20. The tangent of an angle is equal to the ratio of y to x.

   tanθ = y / x

Substituting,

   tanθ = 20/45 = 0.44

The value of θ is 23.96°.