Why do you use cot in this eqation, my first thought was to use tan.
My understanding is cotθ = a/o and tanθ = o/a, would I get the same results if I used tanθ/2 = b/2 /d is there a reason my online teacher defaults to cot for this one?
CPhill helped me on a previous question wasn't sure how to thank him. So early thanks to anyone who helps me <3
We don't need the cotangent.....notice that
tan (θ/2) = opp/adj = (b/2) / d = 1 cm / d
The only difficult thing here is to convert θ = 1° 23 ' 12 " to decimal degrees.....so we have
[1 + (23/60) + (12/3600)]° ≈ 1.387°
So θ/2 = (1.387° / 2) = (.6935°)
So...we have
tan (.6935°) = 1 / d rearrange as
d = 1 / tan (.6935°) ≈ 82.6 cm