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Angle From Any Two Sides: Finding An Angle in A Right Angled Triangle

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52 views4 pages

Angle From Any Two Sides: Finding An Angle in A Right Angled Triangle

math

Uploaded by

umar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Finding an Angle in a Right Angled Triangle

Angle from Any Two Sides


We can find an unknown angle in a right-angled triangle , as long as we know the lengths of two of its sides.

Example
The ladder leans against a wall as shown.
What is the angle between the ladder and the wall?

The answer is to use Sine, Cosine or Tangent !


But which one to use? We have a special phrase " SOHCAHTOA " to help us, and we use it like this:

Step 1: find the names of the two sides we know


Adjacent is adjacent to the angle,
Opposite is opposite the angle,
and the longest side is the Hypotenuse.

Example: in our ladder example we know the length of:


the side Opposite the angle "x", which is 2.5
the longest side, called the Hypotenuse, which is 5

Step 2: now use the first letters of those two sides (Opposite and Hypotenuse) and the phrase
" SOHCAHTOA " to find which one of Sine, Cosine or Tangent to use:
SOH...
...CAH...
...TOA

Sine: sin() = Opposite / Hypotenuse


Cosine: cos() = Adjacent / Hypotenuse
Tangent: tan() = Opposite / Adjacent
converted by Web2PDFConvert.com

In our example that is Opposite and Hypotenuse, and that gives us SOHcahtoa, which tells us we need to
use Sine.

Step 3: Put our values into the Sine equation:


Sin (x) = Opposite / Hypotenuse = 2.5 / 5 = 0.5
Step 4: Now solve that equation!
sin(x) = 0.5
Next (trust me for the moment) we can re-arrange that into this:
x = sin-1(0.5)
And then get our calculator, key in 0.5 and use the sin-1 button to get the answer:
x = 30
And we have our answer!

But what is the meaning of sin-1 ?


Well, the Sine function "sin" takes an angle and gives us the ratio "opposite/hypotenuse",

But sin-1 (called "inverse sine") goes the other way ...
... it takes the ratio "opposite/hypotenuse" and gives us an angle.

Example:
Sine Function: sin(30) = 0.5
Inverse Sine Function: sin-1(0.5) = 30

On the calculator press one of the following (depending


on your brand of calculator): either '2ndF sin' or 'shift sin'.

On your calculator, try using sin and sin-1 to see what results you get!

converted by Web2PDFConvert.com

Also try cos and cos-1. And tan and tan-1.


Go on, have a try now.

Step By Step
These are the four steps we need to follow:

Step 1 Find which two sides we know out of Opposite, Adjacent and Hypotenuse.
Step 2 Use SOHCAHTOA to decide which one of Sine, Cosine or Tangent to use in this question.
Step 3 For Sine calculate Opposite/Hypotenuse, for Cosine calculate Adjacent/Hypotenuse or for Tangent
calculate Opposite/Adjacent.

Step 4 Find the angle from your calculator, using one of sin-1, cos-1 or tan-1

Examples
Lets look at a couple more examples:

Example
Find the angle of elevation of the plane from point A on the ground.

Step 1 The two sides we know are Opposite (300) and Adjacent (400).
Step 2 SOHCAHTOA tells us we must use Tangent.
Step 3 Calculate Opposite/Adjacent = 300/400 = 0.75
Step 4 Find the angle from your calculator using tan-1
Tan x = opposite/adjacent = 300/400 = 0.75

tan-1 of 0.75 = 36.9 (correct to 1 decimal place)

Unless youre told otherwise, angles are usually rounded to one place of decimals.

Example
Find the size of angle a

Step 1 The two sides we know are Adjacent (6,750) and Hypotenuse (8,100).
Step 2 SOHCAHTOA tells us we must use Cosine.
Step 3 Calculate Adjacent / Hypotenuse = 6,750/8,100 = 0.8333
Step 4 Find the angle from your calculator using cos-1 of 0.8333:
cos a = 6,750/8,100 = 0.8333
converted by Web2PDFConvert.com

cos a = 6,750/8,100 = 0.8333

cos-1 of 0.8333 = 33.6 (to 1 decimal place)

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6


Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10

Random Trigonometry
The Law of Sines
The Law of Cosines
Solving Triangles
Trigonometry Index
Algebra Index

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