Question

A bomb goes off next to the wall of a church. Fortunately, no one is hurt. The wall runs east to west and the bomb was just south of it. A forensics expert finds two fragments in the wall. From their penetration, she estimates they were both moving at 100 m/s. The first hit 34 degrees west of north and had a mass of 3.1 kg. The second hit 41 degrees east of north and had a mass of 4.6 kg. The expert suspects that there was an additional large fragment she needs to recover. Unfortunately, the wall faces a large field and searching the whole field will take time. The sooner she recovers the bomb parts, the better for the investigation. What is the direction of the additional large fragment?

1) 34 degrees west of north
2) 41 degrees east of north
3) 56 degrees west of north
4) 56 degrees east of north

Answer 1

The direction of the additional large fragment is 319 degrees east of north.

Step-by-step explanation:

The direction of the additional large fragment can be determined by analyzing the directions of the two fragments that were found in the wall. The first fragment hit 34 degrees west of north and the second fragment hit 41 degrees east of north. Since the additional fragment will complete the full 360-degree circle, we can subtract the angles of the two fragments from 360 to find the direction of the additional fragment.

360 - 34 = 326 degrees west of north

360 - 41 = 319 degrees east of north

Therefore, the direction of the additional large fragment is 319 degrees east of north.