Real-Life Math
Ken Moses is the director of a forensic consulting firm. "Math is
important in crime scenes. We care about measurements and numbers," he says.
"The more careful you measure, the more accurate your conclusion will be."
Police
responded to the scene of a shooting at 1411 2nd Ave. on Tuesday evening.
When they arrived, they found Elizabeth Dyer dead on the floor from a gunshot
wound to the heart. Her husband, Bill Dyer, stated that he had been sitting
at his worktable cleaning his pistol when "the darn thing went off," accidentally
killing his wife.
The fatal bullet passed through Mrs. Dyer's heart
and into the wall 2 feet above the floor at an angle of 30 degrees. The worktable
is 8 feet from the wall and is 3.5 feet high.
Using your math skills,
find out whether Mr. Dyer should be charged with murder or not. If the shot
was fired from the height of the table, he's clear. If it was fired from a
higher point, then he'll be under suspicion for murder.
Hint: use the
equation:
tan = b (opposite) / a (adjacent)