The University of Sydney

MOOC Introduction to Calculus

Notes for ‘The unit circle and trigonometry’
Important Ideas and Useful Facts:
(i) Angles, degrees and radians: Angles in the plane are positive when measured anticlockwise,
and negative when measured clockwise. Angles may be measured in degrees (using the
symbol ◦ ) or in radians (expressed usually simply as real numbers).
The angle of a full circle is 360◦ . The radian measure of an angle θ is the length of an
arc on a unit circle subtended by θ. In particular 360◦ corresponds to 2π radians, the
perimeter of the unit circle. Thus 1◦ corresponds to 360
2π π
= 180 radians, and one radian
180 ◦
corresponds to π degrees, which is approximately 57.3 .
Some common conversions between degrees and radians are as follows:
degrees 1◦ 30◦ 45◦ 60◦ 90◦ 120◦ 135◦ 150◦ 180◦ 270◦ 360◦
π π π π π 2π 3π 5π 3π
radians 180 6 4 3 2 3 4 6
π 2
2π

(ii) The sine, cosine and tangent of any angle: For an arbitrary angle θ, we put
sin θ y
(cos θ, sin θ) = (x, y) and tan θ = = (provided x = cos θ ̸= 0) ,
cos θ x
where (x, y) lies on the unit circle satisfying the equation x2 + y 2 = 1, centred at the
origin (0, 0), and where the radius from (0, 0) to (x, y) subtends an angle θ:

1 1

(cos θ, sin θ)
sin θ sin θ
tan θ
θ θ
−1 cos θ 1 −1 cos θ 1

−1 −1

The point on the circle can be in any quadrant. Note, however, that for an acute angle θ,
where the point on the unit circle ends up in the first quadrant, as in the diagram above,
these definitions coincide with definitions given previously. To see this, one uses ratios
of sides of the right-angled triangle formed using the point on the circle, the origin and
the point on the horizontal axis labelled by cos θ. The radius of length 1 becomes the
hypotenuse.
It follows also, by considering similar right-angled triangles, that tan θ is the length of
the line segment along the tangent to the circle, from the x-axis to the intersection point
with the line extending the radius, measured negatively in the 2nd and 4th quadrants.

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(iii) Equivalent angles: Angles are equivalent if they differ by integer multiples of 2π. For
example, 0, ±2π, ±4π, . . . are equivalent; π6 , − 11π
6
and 13π
6
are equivalent; − π2 , 3π
2
and 7π
2
are equivalent. The values of sin, cos and tan remain the same for equivalent angles.

(iv) Common trig values for first quadrant angles:

√
sin 0 = 0 , cos 0 = 1 , tan 0 = 0 , sin π6 = 1
2
, cos π6 = 2
3
, tan π6 = √1
3
,
√ √
sin π4 = √1
2
, cos π4 = √1
2
, tan π4 = 1 , sin π3 = 2
3
, cos π3 = 1
2
, tan π3 = 3,
sin π2 = 1 , cos π2 = 0 , tan π2 is undefined .

(v) Signs of trig values inside the respective quadrants: In the first quadrant (not including the
axes), we have
sin θ
sin θ > 0 , cos θ > 0 , tan θ = > 0.
cos θ
In the second quadrant (not including the axes), we have
sin θ
sin θ > 0 , cos θ < 0 , tan θ = < 0.
cos θ
In the third quadrant (not including the axes), we have
sin θ
sin θ < 0 , cos θ < 0 , tan θ = > 0.
cos θ
In the fourth quadrant (not including the axes), we have
sin θ
sin θ < 0 , cos θ > 0 , tan θ = < 0.
cos θ

π 3π
(vi) Trig values on the axes: Points on the unit circle with angles θ equivalent to 0, , π,
2 2
fall on the axes at the points (1, 0), (0, 1), (−1, 0), (0, −1) respectively. We therefore get
the following trig values:

sin 0 = 0 , cos 0 = 1 , tan 0 = 0 ,

(π ) (π ) (π )
sin = 1, cos = 0, tan is undefined ,
2 2 2
sin π = 0 , cos π = −1 , tan π = 0 ,
( 3π ) ( 3π ) ( 3π )
sin = −1 , cos = 0, tan is undefined .
2 2 2
(vii) The circular functions: Finally we can define the circular functions. However, we need to
change our point of view slightly, in order to use x as an input.
In the preceding discussion we have used θ to denote an angle associated with the unit
circle in the xy-plane.
To use x as an input, we ignore the labels on the axes, and think of x now as the arc
length subtended by an angle on the point of the unit circle, centred at the origin, and
the angle as usual is measured in the positive direction by moving anticlockwise from the
point 1 on the horizontal axis.

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Thus sin x is the real number obtained by moving directly across to the vertical axis, and
cos x is the real number obtained by moving directly up or down to the horizontal axis.
(Exactly how one moves across to the right or left to the vertical axis, or up or down to
the horizontal axis, depends on the quadrant of the circle in which the point happens to
be. In the following diagram the point (cos x, sin x) happens to be in the first quadrant.)

(cos x, sin x)
sin x
arc length x

−1 cos x 1

−1

Consider moving anticlockwise one revolution of the circle, but broken up into four stages:

(1) as x goes from 0 to π2 in the first quadrant, sin x, the point on the vertical axis, goes
from 0 to 1, whilst cos x, the point on the horizontal axis, goes from 1 to 0.
(2) as x goes from π2 to π in the second quadrant, sin x returns from 1 to 0, whilst cos x
goes from 0 to −1.
(3) as x goes from π to 3π
2
in the third quadrant, sin x goes from 0 to −1, whilst cos x
returns from −1 to 0.
(4) as x goes from 3π
2
to 2π in the fourth quadrant, sin x returns from −1 to 0, whilst
cos x goes from 0 to 1.

We can plot the behaviour of y = sin x and y = cos x for this single anticlockwise revolu-
tion of the circle, now in the xy-plane, for 0 ≤ x ≤ 2π:

y y

1 1
y = sin x y = cos x

3π 3π
2 2π π 2

π
π x π
2π x
2 2

−1 −1
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We now allow the angle x, measured as arc length, to make unlimited numbers of rev-
olutions of the unit circle both clockwise and anticlockwise and we produce curves that
oscillate infinitely often, in both the positive and negative directions along the entire real
number line:

y = sin x
1

−3π −π 2π 4π

−4π −2π π 3π x

−1

y = cos x
1

−3π −π π 3π

−4π −2π 2π 4π x

−1

The functions y = sin x and y = cos x we produce in this way are called the circular
functions, because the pair (cos x, sin x) form coordinates on the unit circle. They both
have the same domain, which is the entire real line R, and the same range, which is the
interval [−1, 1].
Their graphs are called sinusoidal curves. Notice that the sine and cosine curve have
exactly the same shape. One can get the cosine curve from the sine curve by translating
the sine curve horizontally to the left by π2 units, so that
( π)
cos x = sin x + ,
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and we can get the sine curve from the cosine curve by translating the cosine curve
horizontally to the right by π2 units, so that
( π)
sin x = cos x − .
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