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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 the angles α, β, the law of cosines can be used: [3] = + = +. Then angle γ = 180° − α − β . Some sources recommend to find angle β from the law of sines but (as Note 1 above states) there is a risk of confusing an acute angle value with an obtuse one.
Since there are four such triangles, there are four such constraints on sums of angles, and the number of degrees of freedom is thereby reduced from 12 to 8. The four relations given by the sine law further reduce the number of degrees of freedom, from 8 down to not 4 but 5, since the fourth constraint is not independent of the first three ...
Case 5: two angles and an opposite side given (AAS). The sine rule gives b and then we have Case 7 (rotated). There are either one or two solutions. Case 6: three angles given (AAA). The supplemental cosine rule may be used to give the sides a, b, and c but, to avoid ambiguities, the half-side formulae are preferred.
If the law of cosines is used to solve for c, the necessity of inverting the cosine magnifies rounding errors when c is small. In this case, the alternative formulation of the law of haversines is preferable. [3] A variation on the law of cosines, the second spherical law of cosines, [4] (also called the cosine rule for angles [1]) states:
In spherical trigonometry, the law of cosines and derived identities such as Napier's analogies have precise duals swapping central angles measuring the sides and dihedral angles at the vertices. In the infinitesimal limit, the law of cosines for sides reduces to the planar law of cosines and two of Napier's analogies reduce to Mollweide's ...
Given two sides a and b and the angle between the sides C, the area of the triangle is given by half the product of the lengths of two sides and the sine of the angle between the two sides: [85] Area = Δ = 1 2 a b sin C {\displaystyle {\mbox{Area}}=\Delta ={\frac {1}{2}}ab\sin C}
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 ...