How do you find the acute angle between two intersecting lines whos equations are given in vector form?

For this question we first need to understand which angle it is we're calculating. When two lines intersect two pairs of equal and opposite angles are formed (4 angles total). We are looking to find the small of these two angle values.
To do this, we use the rearranged dot product formula. Only the direction parts of the line equations are needed - this is the part next to the scalar multiplier. We find the dot product of these two direction vectors as well as their magnitudes and then substitute these into the formula. Then we can use the inverse cosine function to give us the angle we're looking for.

Answered by Maths tutor

34916 Views

See similar Maths A Level tutors

Related Maths A Level answers

All answers ▸

The General Form of the equation of a circle is x^2 + y^2 + 2gx +2fy + c = 0. Find the centre of the circle and the radius of the circle in terms of g f and c.


A triangle has sides A, B and C. The side BC has length 20cm, the angle ABC is 50 deg and angle BAC is 68 deg. a) Show that the length of AC is 16.5cm, correct to three significant figures. b) The midpoint of BC is M, hence find the length of AM


June 2008 C1 Paper Differentiation Question


Find the set of values for which x^2 - 7x - 18 >0


We're here to help

contact us iconContact usWhatsapp logoMessage us on Whatsapptelephone icon+44 (0) 203 773 6020
Facebook logoInstagram logoLinkedIn logo

© MyTutorWeb Ltd 2013–2025

Terms & Conditions|Privacy Policy
Cookie Preferences