Question

In gym class you run 22m horizontal then climb a rope vertically for 4.8m. What is the direction angle of your total displacement, as measured from the horizontal?

Answer 1

The answer is: 12.30 degrees.

The explanation for this exercise is shown below:

1. You can make a right triangle as you can see in the picture attached, where $\alpha$ is the angle asked, the opposite side is 4.8 meters and the adjacent side is 22 meters.

2. Therefore, you can use $tan^{-1}$ to calculate the angle, as following:

$tan^{-1}(\alpha)=\frac{opposite}{adjacent}\\tan^{-1}(\alpha)=\frac{4.8}{22}\\\alpha=12.30degrees$