Orchard Hideout

Finn Brunner

Problem Statement
An orchard has a radius of 50, for every 1 whole unit a tree is placed inside the radius. If
each tree has an initial radius of 0.4 and the area of the tree grows by 1.5^2 every year,
how many years will it take until the longest line of sight is blocked?

Process
I first started with what we know.
The cross-sectional area of a tree trunk increases by 1.5 square inches per year.
The tree trunks each have a circumference of 2.5 inches.
One Unit is equal to 10 feet. (0,0 to 0,1 is 10 feet)
The last line of sight is the line that goes from the origin through the point (25,½)
With that, I opened Desmos and created a formula for a circle. I input 50 for my c
variable which gives me a radius of 50 and 0 for my a and b variables which changes
the horizontal and vertical of the origin. I created a line with a slope of y=1/15x since
that is our longest line of sight. I then create a line with a slope of -y=-50x-50 to create a
line that was perpendicular to our original slope at an x-axis of 1. I used trig to find the
angle of our best line of sight between 0 and 1 on the horizontal. The angle was 1.15
degrees. With the angle of 1.15, I was able to use sin to find the distance between 0 on
our vertical line and where the perpendicular lines intersect. The distance came out to
0.02, which means we now have a final radius for our trees. With the radius, we need to
convert it to a final area. Each unit is equivalent to 10 feet, and we want our radius in
the form of inches. To do so I multiplied 0.02 times 10, which gives me 0.2, then by 12,
which gives me 2.4. 2.4 inches is the radius. To find the area I squared 2.4 and then
multiplied by pi. (2.4^2)*Pi, Since the equation for the area of a circle is pi*r^2. So 18.1
is the final area of the circle. The original circumference of the trees is 2.5, so to find the
initial radius I have to divide by 2pi. 2.5/2pi comes out to roughly 0.4. (0.4^2)pi comes
out to roughly 0.5 for the initial area.

Work
Solution
Final Radius = 2.4
Final Area = 18.1
Initial Radius = 0.4
Initial Area = 0.5
It will take approximately 11.74 years for a tree to block the best line of sight.

Reflection
I procrastinated on this assignment until 11/17, and even then I didn’t bother to do it as
homework. I finished it on the day of the deadline, and it still doesn’t make perfect
sense. I don’t really understand the unit problem, but I go a solution, so I’ll take it. The
problem itself is interesting but I don’t get how it works. Overall just another POW that I
half get.