how the heck do you....

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How do you use the Law of Cosines in addition to the Law of Sines to calculate the other two angles and a side of a non-right triangle when only the two remaining sides of the triangle and the third angle are given?
 
EXACTLY! :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Now the real question is...how do you continue to look at this topic without experiencing an unstoppable urge to close it and have it deleted for all of eternity?!?!?!?!?!?!

BECAUSE I CAN'T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :evil:
 
Resisting the "Slaughter mankind" urge is quite hard, I'll admit, but you see, at this point, I've replaced it with "Mock mankind mercilessly".
 
Walan said:
How do you use the Law of Cosines in addition to the Law of Sines to calculate the other two angles and a side of a non-right triangle when only the two remaining sides of the triangle and the third angle are given?

Ah, but it's a trick question, for you do not necessarily use a cosine! Observe:

Known information:
angle3 = 45
side1 = 5
side2 = 16

angle1 = atan(side1/side2);

angle1 is 17.354024636261322008610845518853 degrees

angle2 = 180 - angle1 - angle3

angle2 is 117.64597536373867799138915448115 degrees

side3 = sin(angle3)*side2

side3 is 11.313708498984760390413509793678
 
SSNTails said:
Walan said:
How do you use the Law of Cosines in addition to the Law of Sines to calculate the other two angles and a side of a non-right triangle when only the two remaining sides of the triangle and the third angle are given?

Ah, but it's a trick question, for you do not necessarily use a cosine! Observe:

Known information:
angle3 = 45
side1 = 5
side2 = 16

angle1 = atan(side1/side2);

angle1 is 17.354024636261322008610845518853 degrees

angle2 = 180 - angle1 - angle3

angle2 is 117.64597536373867799138915448115 degrees

side3 = sin(angle3)*side2

side3 is 11.313708498984760390413509793678

Thanks! Now I can do my Trig homework. ^_^

(Actually, we haven't gone over using tangents to solve triangles yet, but it's always nice to be one step ahead.)
 
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