A cuboid tank is placed on the plane, with its base centered at the origin. The base rectangle edges measure along the axis and along the axis. The height is . It is filled to of its height with water. This is shown on the left of the above figure. Then, it is tilted by a certain angle about an axis of rotation passing through the base vertex , and parallel to the vector , such that the water surface touches the tank top vertex that is above the anchor point (originally at ). This is shown on the right of the above figure. Find the angle of tilt in degrees, and enter .
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Freezing the water surface with respect to the cuboid, and un-tilting the cuboid (i.e. returning it to the upright orientation it started with), we note that the water surface must pass though the top edge point r 1 = ( 2 5 , − 2 7 , 9 ) . From symmetry, it also must pass through the point r 2 = ( 0 , 0 , 6 ) . The unit normal to the water surface before un-tilting is ( 0 , 0 , 1 ) . So after un-tilting, it will point in the direction n = ( − sin 6 0 ∘ sin θ , cos 6 0 ∘ sin θ , cos θ ) . Now we can write,
n ⋅ ( r 1 − r 2 ) = 0
Substituting n , r 1 , r 2 ,
( − sin 6 0 ∘ sin θ , cos 6 0 ∘ sin θ , cos θ ) ⋅ ( 2 5 , − 2 7 , 3 ) = 0
Multiplying by 4 throughout, and simplifying,
sin θ ( − 5 3 − 7 ) + 1 2 cos θ = 0
So that,
tan θ = 5 3 + 7 1 2
From which, it follows that,
θ = 3 7 . 4 6 1 9 0 2 4 0 5 1 5 4 3 . . .
And this makes the answer 3 7 4 6 1 9