Try it on paper first. A hint, the key idea and the worked solution are here when you need them.
A cube-shaped storeroom has edges of metres. Put the origin at one floor corner, with the axes along the three edges from it. The cleaner walks along the floor diagonal from to the point . The electrician runs a cable along the space diagonal from to the opposite top corner . Find the angle between the two lines and the cosine of that angle.
, and two non-zero vectors are perpendicular when . Use the two vectors that start at the corner to find the angle at that corner.
Have you tried it?
Work it out on paper first. It is fine to get stuck or make a mistake: that is how we learn. When you are ready, go through the solution one step at a time, and check each step against your own.
Step 1. The vectors. with , and with .
Step 2. The dot product. .
Step 3. The cosine. .
Step 4. The angle. .
Answer: about , with .
Watch out. The angle is the same for a cube of any size, because the edge length cancels.
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