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The definitions of sine and cosine have been extended to any real value in terms of the lengths of certain line segments in a unit circle. More modern definitions express the sine and cosine as infinite series , or as the solutions of certain differential equations , allowing their extension to arbitrary positive and negative values and even to ...
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 = =.
To extend the sine and cosine functions to functions whose domain is the whole real line, geometrical definitions using the standard unit circle (i.e., a circle with radius 1 unit) are often used; then the domain of the other functions is the real line with some isolated points removed.
Fig. 1a – Sine and cosine of an angle θ defined using the unit circle Indication of the sign and amount of key angles according to rotation direction. Trigonometric ratios can also be represented using the unit circle, which is the circle of radius 1 centered at the origin in the plane. [37]
which by the Pythagorean theorem is equal to 1. This definition is valid for all angles, due to the definition of defining x = cos θ and y sin θ for the unit circle and thus x = c cos θ and y = c sin θ for a circle of radius c and reflecting our triangle in the y-axis and setting a = x and b = y.
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.
Illustration of the sine and tangent inequalities. The figure at the right shows a sector of a circle with radius 1. The sector is θ/(2 π) of the whole circle, so its area is θ/2. We assume here that θ < π /2. = = = =
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°.