Jin walked 4 km on a straight path to get to the sandwich shop. He traveled 30° south of east. What is the southern component of Jin’s component, rounded to the nearest tenth?
Here, we can use the resolution of vectors to find the component in the y-axis of the distance traveled by Jin. The southern component is given by: s = dsin(∅), where s is the southern component, d is the distance traveled and ∅ is the angle below east at which it was traveled. s = 4sin(30) s = 2 km
By using sohcahtoa, we can find that 4sin(30)= the southern component of the triangle. But since the component is in the southward direction, the answer is negative two, not just the positive two.
