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Fig. 1 – A triangle. The angles α (or A), β (or B), and γ (or C) are respectively opposite the sides a, b, and c. In trigonometry, the law of cosines (also known as the cosine formula or cosine rule) relates the lengths of the sides of a triangle to the cosine of one of its angles.
To find an unknown angle, the law of cosines is safer than the law of sines. The reason is that the value of sine for the angle of the triangle does not uniquely determine this angle. For example, if sin β = 0.5, the angle β can equal either 30° or 150°. Using the law of cosines avoids this problem: within the interval from 0° to 180° the ...
In mathematics, sine and cosine are trigonometric functions of an angle.The sine and cosine of an acute angle are defined in the context of a right triangle: for the specified angle, its sine is the ratio of the length of the side opposite that angle to the length of the longest side of the triangle (the hypotenuse), and the cosine is the ratio of the length of the adjacent leg to that of the ...
The cosine rule may be used to give the angles A, B, and C but, to avoid ambiguities, the half angle formulae are preferred. Case 2: two sides and an included angle given (SAS). The cosine rule gives a and then we are back to Case 1. Case 3: two sides and an opposite angle given (SSA). The sine rule gives C and then we have Case 7. There are ...
The triple-angle formula gives an expression relating the cosines of the original angle and its trisection: cos θ = 4 cos 3 θ / 3 − 3 cos θ / 3 . It follows that, given a segment that is defined to have unit length, the problem of angle trisection is equivalent to constructing a segment whose length is the root of a cubic ...
A formula for computing the trigonometric identities for the one-third angle exists, but it requires finding the zeroes of the cubic equation 4x 3 − 3x + d = 0, where is the value of the cosine function at the one-third angle and d is the known value of the cosine function at the full angle.
For a small angle, H and A are almost the same length, and therefore cos θ is nearly 1. The segment d (in red to the right) is the difference between the lengths of the hypotenuse, H, and the adjacent side, A, and has length , which for small angles is approximately equal to /.
The values of sine and cosine of 30 and 60 degrees are derived by analysis of the equilateral triangle. In an equilateral triangle, the 3 angles are equal and sum to 180°, therefore each corner angle is 60°. Bisecting one corner, the special right triangle with angles 30-60-90 is obtained.