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[1] [10] Another precarious convention used by a small number of authors is to use an uppercase first letter, along with a “ −1 ” superscript: Sin −1 (x), Cos −1 (x), Tan −1 (x), etc. [11] Although it is intended to avoid confusion with the reciprocal, which should be represented by sin −1 (x), cos −1 (x), etc., or, better, by ...
Approximately equal behavior of some (trigonometric) functions for x → 0. For small angles, the trigonometric functions sine, cosine, and tangent can be calculated with reasonable accuracy by the following simple approximations:
A geometric way of deriving the sine or cosine of 45° is by considering an isosceles right triangle with leg length 1. Since two of the angles in an isosceles triangle are equal, if the remaining angle is 90° for a right triangle, then the two equal angles are each 45°.
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]
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 ...
For example, the sine of angle θ is defined as being the length of the opposite side divided by the length of the hypotenuse. The six trigonometric functions are defined for every real number, except, for some of them, for angles that differ from 0 by a multiple of the right angle (90°). Referring to the diagram at the right, the six ...
The external secant or external distance of a curved track section is the shortest distance between the track and the intersection of the tangent lines from the ends of the arc, which equals the radius times the trigonometric exsecant of half the central angle subtended by the arc, . [12] By comparison, the versed sine of a curved track ...
The trigonometric functions cosine and sine of angle θ may be defined on the unit circle as follows: If (x, y) is a point on the unit circle, and if the ray from the origin (0, 0) to (x, y) makes an angle θ from the positive x-axis, (where counterclockwise turning is positive), then = =.