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4. A spelunker is surveying a cave.

She follows a passage 180 m straight west, then 210 m in a direction


45degrees east of south, and then 280 m at 30degrees east of north. After a fourth unmeasured
displacement, she finds herself back where she started. Use a scale drawing to determine the magnitude
and direction of the fourth displacement.

lay a coordinate system over the cave such that the start is at the origin.
Now convert the passages into vectors:
Passage 1: (-180 I 0)

Passage 2: (210*cos45I 210*sin45) --> the components of the vector have to be equal, because the
angle is - 45.

Passage 3: the angle of the vector is 60with the +x axis.
The components of the vector are (280*cos60I 260*sin 60)

Now add all vectors:
x = -180 +210*cos45+ 280*cos60= 108,49
y = 0 - 210*sin45+ 280*sin60= 93,99

Her standpoint after the three passages is (108,49 I 93,99)
To go back to the origin, the 4. passage must have been (-108,,49 I - 93,99).
The angle back is arctan 93,99/ 108,49 = 41south of west, (or 49west of south).
And the length of that passage is (108,49^2 + 93,99^2) = 143,5 m.

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Conditions for Equilibrium
An object is in equilibrium if ;
1. The resultant force acting on the object is zero.
2. The sum of the moments acting on an object must be zero.
Triangle of forces
When an object is in equilibrium the forces acting on it will form a closed triangle.
Example 1) A point (P) upon which all the forces are in equilibrium.

We take the three forces above and keeping the size and direction the same redraw them
placing them head to tail with each other. If the forces are in equilibrium the head of the
last forces will meet the tail of the first forming a closed triangle, see the example below.

Example 2) A point (P) upon which the forces are not in equilibrium.

When the forces above are laid head to tail the head of the last force does not meet back
at the tail of the first and so these forces are not in equilibrium. See below.

These problems can also be solved by resolving any forces acting at an
angle into their horizontal and vertical components. Once you have
done this if the forces are in equilibrium then the sum of all the
horizontal forces must equal zero and the sum of all the vertical forces
must also equal zero.
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he two conditions of equilibrium are: 1. Concurrent Equilibrium the sum of vector forces through a
point is zero. 2. Coplanar equilibrium, the sum of forces in a plane is zero and the sum of the torques
around the axis of the plane is zero. These two conditions are similar to Ohms Laws in Electricity:
Ohms Node Law the sum of the currents at a node is zero and Ohms Voltage law, the sum of the
voltages around a loop is zero. These equilibrium conditions reflect the Quaternion mathematics that
controls physics. Quaternions consist of a scalar or real number and three vector numbers.
Equilibrium is the Homogeneous condition of a quaternion equation: the sum of the scalars or real
numbers must be zero AND the sum of the vector numbers must also be zero. Thus there are TWO
Conditions for Equilibrium. However if we were to use quaternions as nature does, then Equilibrium
would be simplified to the zero quaternion condition.

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