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, and its
accompanying parametric forms, () (), cannot be used
until r at five and 60 minutes is determined.
Strategy
To overcome the difficulty of the Georges changing distance and speed, his journey is
divided it into many time intervals in order to obtain an approximation of his position. By doing
this, we are increasing the likelihood that the changes in his distances from the center of the yard
are kept to a minimum within each interval. By using the Law of Cosines, we can calculate the
distance, r, for each partition. At the final r, we can then apply the parametric equation of a
circle to determine Georges coordinates.
Methodology
We are given some pieces of crucial information. First, we know that the begonias are
located 30ft east and 20ft north of the center of the yard. These are the (x,y) coordinates since
we are representing the yard in terms of a coordinate plane with the origin, (0,0) being the center.
GEORGE THE SLUG 3
Second, the begonias lie at angle from the x-axis, and George always moves in the
direction of the vector determined by his distance from the center, r, and +91 with a speed of
ft/min. The steps in our calculations are outlined in the illustration below:
Because we know the location of the begonias to be 30ft east and 20ft north of the center of
the yard, we can find by calculating the arctangent of 20/30 in STEP 1. This is determined to
be 0.588 radians (33.69 degrees).
By applying the Pythagorean Theorem, we find r to be 36.00555127546 feet in STEP 2.
This r represents our starting distance and is not Georges final distance from the center.
We know that the angle on one side of a straight line is radians (180 degrees). Since the
lines representing Georges travel direction are parallel, we can determine that the angle
indicated by the arrow in STEP 3 to be 1.55 radians (89 degrees). This angle is constant within
each time interval.
The distance traveled within a time interval is calculated with the distance = velocity*time
formula. For increased accuracy, we break up Georges trip into 500,000 intervals, leaving us
with the change in time (t) of 0.00001 when calculating for five minutes. Using this and the
velocity of
ft/min, we can conclude that the distance traveled within the first partition in
STEP 4 to be 0.0005160226 feet.
With the information from STEP 2, STEP 3, and STEP 4, we can apply the Law of
Cosines,