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Swamp Length From Computed Angles (Posted on 2023-10-13) Difficulty: 3 of 5
A swamp interferes with the direct measurement of a surveyline AB. Hence, an auxiliary point C is established and the distance AC is measured with an accuracy of 1 part in 1000. Then the angles BAC and ABC are found to be 45 and 30 degrees respectively, with a possible error of 2 minutes in each.

Find approximately the greatest possible percentage error in the computed length of AB.

See The Solution Submitted by K Sengupta    
Rating: 3.0000 (2 votes)

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Solution Solution | Comment 3 of 7 |
Say the actual length of AC is 1000.
The triangle ABC has degrees of 45-30-105 (±)
If you drop a perpendicular from C to AB, calling it D, AD=CD=500√2 (±).
AC = 1000, angle A = 45, angle B = 30 plus or minus the errors.
And DB is 500√6 (±) so AB = 500(√2+√6)  (±)   About 1931.85165

Here were my steps.
1. AD = 1000*cos(A)
2. CD = 1000*sin(A)
3. DB = CD/tan(B)
4. AB = AD + DB
So AB = 1000*cos(A) + 1000*sin(A)/tan(B)

Consider the extreme values of each of the 3 measured quantities:
length AC = 999 or 1001
AngleA = 45 ± 1/30
AngleB = 30 ± 1/30
For 3 variables each having 2 extremes, there are 8 cases.

Note that the estimates for AD and CD are not independent.  Whichever direction the error of angle A was, if AD is overestimated, CD is underestimated.  So some of the errors in AD and CD may partially cancel out.

Program Output:
Theoretically correct length 1931.8516525781365 

 Calculation    Error in parts per thousand
1931.2631932614086 -0.3046089568744192
1927.977369462088 -2.005476513104955
1931.866804850572 0.007843393365749515
1928.577155595664 -1.6950043643892652
1935.1295860407108 1.696783217386165
1931.8371840155655 -0.007489479097255586
1935.7344060614842 2.009861097857046
1932.4381709221816 0.30360423548172344
The error in parts per thousand calculates to 2.0076674220398862

So the maximum error is about 2 parts per thousand (about 0.2%)


------------
import math
pi = math.pi

ACs = [999, 1001]
anglesA = [45-1/30, 45+1/30]
anglesB = [30-1/30, 30+1/30]

calculations = []
errors = []
for ac in ACs:
    for anglA in anglesA:
        for anglB in anglesB:
            ab = ac*math.cos(anglA*pi/180) + ac*math.sin(anglA*pi/180)/math.tan(anglB*pi/180)
            calculations.append(ab)
            
perfectAB = 500*(2**.5 + 6**.5)
for calc in calculations:
    errors.append(1000 * (calc - perfectAB)/perfectAB)

print('Theoretically correct length', perfectAB, '\n')
print(' Calculation    Error in parts per thousand')
for i in range(8):
    print(calculations[i], errors[i])

errorRange = (max(calculations) - min(calculations))
meanCalcs = sum(calculations)/8
errorppt = 1000*(errorRange/2)/meanCalcs
print('The error in parts per thousand calculates to', errorppt)
            

  Posted by Larry on 2023-10-13 13:58:45
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