Law of tangents

Law of tangents is a statement about the relationship between the tangents of two
angles of a triangle and the lengths of the opposite sides.

a, b, and c are the lengths of the three sides of the triangle, and α, β, and γ are the
angles opposite those three respective sides. The law of tangents states that

The law of tangents, although not as commonly known as the law of sines or the law
of cosines, is just as useful, and can be used in any case where two sides and an angle,
or two angles and a side are known.

The law of tangents for spherical triangles was described in the 13th century by
Persian mathematician, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201-74), who also presented the law of
sines for plane triangles in his five volume work Treatise on the Quadrilateral.[2][3]

Proof

To prove the law of tangents we can start with the law of sines:

Let

so that

It follows that
Using the trigonometric identity

we get

As an alternative to using the identity for the sum or difference of two sines, one may
cite the trigonometric identity

Mollweide's Formulas
Mollweide's formulas relate the legs of a triangle to its corresponding angles. These
formulas are mostly of academic interest and are of little practical importance:

THE RIGHT SPHERICAL TRIANGLE

A right spherical triangle is one which has an angle equal to 90 degrees. A spherical
triangle unlike a plane triangle, may have two or even three right angles.
If a triangle has three right angles, we have the solution at once, for each of the sides
is a quadrant or 90 degrees.

If a triangle has two right angles, the sides opposite these angles are quadrants, and
the third angle is measured by its opposite side. If the third angle or its opposite side is
given, the solution is obvious.

Hence we have to consider the solution of right spherical triangles having only one
right angle.

Let a, b, and c be the sides of a right triangle with opposite angles A, B, and C. ( C =
90 degrees )

sin a = sin A * sin c sin a = tan b * ctn B

sin b = sin B * sin c sin b = tan a * ctn A
cos c = cos a * cos b cos c = ctn A * ctn B
cos A = cos a * sin B cos A = tan b * ctn c
cos B = cos b * sin A cos B = tan a * ctn c

Spherical Trig.
A spherical triangle is defined when three planes pass through the surface of a sphere
and through the sphere's center of volume.

A spherical triangle has three surface angles and three central angles. In the figure,
'A', 'B', and 'C' label the surface angles while 'a', 'b', and 'c' label the central angles.
The surface angles correspond to the angle at which two planes intersect each other.
Note that the arcs are labeled by the central angles. In particular, notice that the arc
opposite a surface angle is labeled with the surface angle's LOWER case letter. For
example, the arc opposite the surface angle 'A' is labeled by the lower case letter 'a'.
This is just notation and need not be followed, but it helps in remembering the
relations to follow.
As with plane trigonometry, it is usually easiest to work with a right spherical
triangle. That is, a spherical triangle which has a surface angle. I will label this
surface angle with the capital letter 'C'. This means that the planes which define angle
'C' intersect each other at .

It may be necessary to either extend a spherical triangle or divide a spherical triangle

into two triangles in order to obtain a spherical triangle. See below. This is often
done in plane trigonometry.

Let B be an angle. We define the complement angle to be . Then from

the trigonometric relations given in Plane Trig, we have

Note that in paragraph 1050.40 of Synergetics, the complement angle, identified by a

small superscript 'c', is incorrectly identified as being . The angle
is known as the supplemental angle.

Napier's Rules for a spherical right triangle may be stated as:

1. The sine of an angle is equal to the product of cosines of the opposite two angles.

2. The sine of an angle is equal to the product of tangents of the two adjacent angles.

There is an easy way to determine which angles are the opposite and which angles are
the adjacent angles. Consider the spherical right triangle in which the surface angle C
is . We may write the 5 other angles (the surface angle is omitted) into a circle
which has been divided into 5 ''pieces of pie''.
For example, starting with the angle b and moving in a counter clockwise direction
around the spherical triangle, the angles b, a, B, c, and A are enter into the circle also
in a counter clockwise direction. We must now take the complement of all the angles
which are NOT connected to the surface angle C. These angles are B, c, and A and
are the angles connected to the hypotenuse. So, a bar is written over these three angles
in the circle to give us , , and . It is now easy to see which angles are opposite and
which angles are adjacent. For example, pick angle a. The Napier circle shows that
the two opposite angles are and while the two adjacent angles are b and .
Therefore, from Napier's Rule #1 (and the above relations for complimentary angles),
we have

Napier's Rule #1

Napier's Rule #2

The following relations hold for spherical triangles other than just the spherical right
triangle.
The Law of Cosines (central angles):
1. cos(a) = cos(b)cos(c) + sin(b)sin(c)cos(A)
2. cos(b) = cos(a)cos(c) + sin(a)sin(c)cos(B)
3. cos(c) = cos(a)cos(b) + sin(a)sin(b)cos(C)
The Law of Cosines (surface angles):

1. cos (A) = - cos(B)cos(C) + sin(B)sin(C)cos(a)

2. cos (B) = - cos(A)cos(C) + sin(A)sin(C)cos(b)

3. cos (C) = - cos(A)cos(B) + sin(A)sin(B)cos(c)

The Law of Sines:

If we know the angles a, A, and b, then we can solve for the angle B by the Law of
Sines

It is possible when using the Law of Sines to obtain no solution, one solution, or two

solutions. In the above example, if , then the Law of Sines gives no

information about angle B since the sine of an angle is always less than or equal to
one. We must also remember that and so we must consider
not only the angle B but also its supplement . So there are two
possible solutions, B and . One of the solutions can be discarded if we know some
other constraint on the angle B. For example, if we know that and the Law of
Sines gives us and , we can discard the
solution.

Although there are other relations which could be stated, these are the only ones
which I have needed in order to calculate the spherical triangle data in the Synergetics
books.

There are many methods for obtaining the solution to a spherical trigonometry
problem as well as many other details which you will find in a spherical trigonometry
text book.

THE NAVIGATION TRIANGLE USING NAPIER'S ANALOGIES -

10/03/2004

When sailing from point 1 (L1, LO1) to point 2 (L2, LO2)

X and Y are intermediate values to simplify the calculation.

t = DLO = difference in longitude (degrees)
C1 = the course angle at point 1
C2 = the course angle at point 2 (reversed))
D = distance from point 1 to point 2 (degrees)
tan X = ctn (t/2) * cos ((L1-L2)/2) / sin ((L1+L2)/2)

tan Y = ctn (t/2) * sin ((L1-L2)/2) / cos ((L1+L2)/2)

C1 = X + Y

C2 = X - Y (usually not required)

tan (D/2) = tan ((L1-L2)/2) * sin X / sin Y

or

tan (D/2) = ctn ((L1+L2)/2) * cos X / cos Y

Note that if L1 = L2, then Y = 0 and C1 = C2 = X.

To convert D from degrees to nautical miles
multiply D by 60.

The angle (C2) that is calculated above is the internal angle of the spherical triangle at
the destination point,but the actual course angle at that point would be opposite by
180 degrees.

Spherical law of cosines

In spherical trigonometry, the law of cosines (also called the cosine rule for sides[1])
is a theorem relating the sides and angles of spherical triangles, analogous to the
ordinary law of cosines from plane trigonometry.

Spherical triangle solved by the law of cosines.

Given a unit sphere, a "spherical triangle" on the surface of the sphere is defined by
the great circles connecting three points u, v, and w on the sphere (shown at right). If
the lengths of these three sides are a (from u to v), b (from u to w), and c (from v to
w), and the angle of the corner opposite c is C, then the (first) spherical law of cosines
states:[2][1]
Since this is a unit sphere, the lengths a, b, and c are simply equal to the angles (in
radians) subtended by those sides from the center of the sphere (for a non-unit sphere,
they are the distances divided by the radius). As a special case, for C = π / 2, then
and one obtains the spherical analogue of the Pythagorean theorem:

A variation on the law of cosines, the second spherical law of cosines,[3] (also called
the cosine rule for angles[1]) states:

where A and B are the angles of the corners opposite to sides a and b, respectively. It
can be obtained from consideration of a spherical triangle dual to the given one.

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.[4]

For small spherical triangles, i.e. for small a, b, and c, the spherical law of cosines is
approximately the same as the ordinary planar law of cosines,

The error in this approximation, which can be obtained from the Maclaurin series for
the cosine and sine functions, is of order

Proof

A proof of the law of cosines can be constructed as follows.[2] Let u, v, and w denote
the unit vectors from the center of the sphere to those corners of the triangle. Then,
the lengths (angles) of the sides are given by the dot products:

To get the angle C, we need the tangent vectors ta and tb at u along the directions of
sides a and b, respectively. For example, the tangent vector ta is the unit vector
perpendicular to u in the u-v plane, whose direction is given by the component of v
perpendicular to u. This means:
where for the denominator we have used the Pythagorean identity sin2(a) = 1 −
cos2(a). Similarly,

Then, the angle C is given by:

from which the law of cosines immediately follows.

Proof without vectors

To the diagram above, add a plane tangent to the sphere at u, and extend radii from
the center of the sphere O to meet the plane at points y and z. We then have two plane
triangles with a side in common: the triangle containing u, y and z and the one
containing O, y and z. Sides of the first triangle are tan a and tan b, with angle C
between them; sides of the second triangle are sec a and sec b, with angle X between
them, which is the angle we're trying to find. By the law of cosines for plane triangles
(and remembering that sec2 of any angle is tan2 + 1),

So

Multiply both sides by cosacosb and rearrange.