The first thing we need to figure out would be the value of .

First, we have to find

the sides of the dashed lines. From the bottom and top of the box are x, while the
vertical sides are 60. This is divided into two triangles, so we need the hypotenuse
of each side in order to get the angle . We can get the sides of the smaller triangle
(since its an isosceles triangle) by determining that it would be x 20. In doing so,
we can also get the side of the top triangle by subtracting the side from 60. This
results in that side being 80 x. Having that information, we can use the
Pythagorean theorem to find both hypotenuses ( which will be designated as

L1L2 :
L1= x2 +(80x )2

L2= x2 +(x20)2

Now we have to use the law of cosines to find .

2

60 =L1 + L2 2 L1 L2 c os
L12 + L22602
=cos (
)
2 L1 L2
1

=cos1 (

x2 +6400160 x + x 2 + x 2+ 40040 x+ x 23600

2 [( x 2 + ( 80x )

)( x 2 + ( x20 )2 ) ]

( 80x )2
x 2+()( x2 + ( x20 )2)

()
2
2
4 x 200 x3200

=cos1
Once we have the derivative, we need to set it equal to 0 to find the x and y values,
which will allow us to find the angle as well:

' =10

1
4
2
=0
x 20 x+ 200 x 80 x +3200

x 220 x+200=

x280 x +3200
4

3x
+20080020 x +20 x=0
4
2

3x
=600
4
x= 800 28.28
Which we round out to x = 28
If we remember, y = x 20, so

y=2820=8
So our (x,y) position comes to (28,8)
Now we plug the x value into our adjacent and hypotenuse to get the angle:

=cos1 (

848 )
3488

By doing the calculation, we can determine that the best viewing angle is
approximately

60.46