from a point on the edge of a sea,one ship is 5km away on a bearing S50E and another is 2km away on a bearing S60W.how far apart are the ships?

Question

Bearing and distances

Answer 1

First you draw the positions of the boats compaired to the shore ane each other to find out that the angle between the boats is 110 degrees. You can use the law of cosines. c^2 = a^2 + b^2 - 2ab Cos(C). Where c is the side you are looking for, a is the side of one boat, b is the side of the other boat, and C is the angle inbetween. You will find that you have c^2 = 2^2 + 5^2 -2(2)(5) Cos(110) That reduces to c^2 = 29 - 20 Cos(110). c^2 = 48.9804. The final answer is c = 6.9986.