Would you square the vector?

Geometry Level 2

If a \vec{a} and b \vec{b} are two valid vectors such that a + b = a b \displaystyle |\vec{a}+\vec{b}| = |\vec{a}-\vec{b}| , then find the angle between the two vectors in degrees.


The answer is 90.

This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and, finally, (c) loading the non-javascript version of this page . We're sorry about the hassle.

2 solutions

We don't know the order of the vectors, so we have to take two cases:

Case 1

a + b = a b \implies \displaystyle |\vec{a}+\vec{b}| = |\vec{a}-\vec{b}|

a + b = a + ( b ) \implies \displaystyle |\vec{a}+\vec{b}| = |\vec{a}+(-\vec{b})|

a 2 + b 2 + 2 a b cos x = a 2 + b 2 + 2 a ( b ) cos x \implies \displaystyle |\sqrt{a^{2}+b^{2}+2ab \cos x}|=|\sqrt{a^{2}+b^{2}+2a(-b) \cos x}|

Now it is pretty evident that if we take the second case, it will be nothing else than the shifting of the above equation's LHS to the RHS and vice versa. So we can continue since the second case leads to the same equation. We now square the sides.

2 a b cos x = 2 a b cos x \implies \displaystyle 2ab \cos x=-2ab \cos x

cos x = cos x \implies \displaystyle \cos x= -\cos x

2 cos x = 0 \implies \displaystyle 2\cos x=0

x = arccos ( 0 ) = 9 0 \implies \displaystyle x = \arccos(0) = 90^\circ x = 9 0 \implies \displaystyle \boxed{x=90^\circ}

展豪 張
May 14, 2016

a + b = a b |\vec a+\vec b|=|\vec a-\vec b|
( a + b ) ( a + b ) = ( a b ) ( a b ) (\vec a+\vec b)\cdot(\vec a+\vec b)=(\vec a-\vec b)\cdot (\vec a-\vec b)
Simplifying yields a b = 0 \vec a \cdot \vec b=0
9 0 \therefore 90^\circ


0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...