mechanics

[celest pecan]

Find direction and magnitude of thus single force
I keep getting wrong answer direction should be 218.4 as they are doing tan 3.8/4.8. But how is it not tan4.8/3.8?

[hot wolf]

its because the angle you are working out is wrong

The angle is usually between the horizontal and the line

Where as you did it between the vertical and the line

You are working out x but as you can see you never use x when its in the positive axis you always use theta

So its the same if its in the negative axis

[celest pecan]

Yeah I thought the direction was anticlockwise of the posertive x axis

I'm still confused where I'm going wrong

[hot wolf]

Ok

So technically What i said was wrong

The angle you want to get is theta

But you have to add 180 because if its asking for the angle between the horizontal

Then the angle would be this one

[celest pecan]

So is the direction always anticlockwise from posertive x axis until you get to the end of the end

[hot wolf]

ye

[celest pecan]

So 180+ theta