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The sine and the cosine functions, for example, are used to describe simple harmonic motion, which models many natural phenomena, such as the movement of a mass attached to a spring and, for small angles, the pendular motion of a mass hanging by a string. The sine and cosine functions are one-dimensional projections of uniform circular motion.
Ptolemy's theorem states that the sum of the products of the lengths of opposite sides is equal to the product of the lengths of the diagonals. When those side-lengths are expressed in terms of the sin and cos values shown in the figure above, this yields the angle sum trigonometric identity for sine: sin(α + β) = sin α cos β + cos α sin β.
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 that is 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 ...
The cosine, cotangent, and cosecant are so named because they are respectively the sine, tangent, and secant of the complementary angle abbreviated to "co-". [32] With these functions, one can answer virtually all questions about arbitrary triangles by using the law of sines and the law of cosines. [33]
Write the functions without "co" on the three left outer vertices (from top to bottom: sine, tangent, secant) Write the co-functions on the corresponding three right outer vertices (cosine, cotangent, cosecant) Starting at any vertex of the resulting hexagon: The starting vertex equals one over the opposite vertex.
For example, the derivative of the sine function is written sin ′ (a) = cos(a), meaning that the rate of change of sin(x) at a particular angle x = a is given by the cosine of that angle. All derivatives of circular trigonometric functions can be found from those of sin( x ) and cos( x ) by means of the quotient rule applied to functions such ...
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In mathematics, the values of the trigonometric functions can be expressed approximately, as in (/), or exactly, as in (/) = /.While trigonometric tables contain many approximate values, the exact values for certain angles can be expressed by a combination of arithmetic operations and square roots.