Intractable physics/trigonometry problem

Aka Abel’s impossibility theorem.

I’m curious as to what horrific misdeed naita’s pupils committed to cause such a terrible punishment to be inflicted …

Finding the angles of the rods isn’t so bad, actually. It’d say it’s a fair problem, and the math isn’t particularly messy. Now, maximizing the angle with respect to the applied electric field – that’d be cruel and unusual…

And I didn’t even ask for the angles. I’m such a pushover.