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Trigo

This document covers topics in trigonometry that are most relevant for aerospace engineering students, including definitions of the basic trigonometric functions using right triangles or the unit circle, inverse trigonometric functions, important trigonometric identities and formulas, and references for further reading. It explains how trigonometric functions relate angles and sides of right triangles and how identities can help solve engineering problems.

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keeno manzano
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30 views7 pages

Trigo

This document covers topics in trigonometry that are most relevant for aerospace engineering students, including definitions of the basic trigonometric functions using right triangles or the unit circle, inverse trigonometric functions, important trigonometric identities and formulas, and references for further reading. It explains how trigonometric functions relate angles and sides of right triangles and how identities can help solve engineering problems.

Uploaded by

keeno manzano
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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SUBJECT CODE: MATH116

SUBJECT NAME: Trigonometry (Integrated in Mathematics for Engineers and Scientists)


EDITOR: Altius McCoy P. Subang
EDIT DATE: June 22, 2019
*Note: This module will cover only topics of Trigonometry that will be most commonly used by Aero Students*

Functions
The trigonometric functions relate the angles in a right triangle to the ratios of the
sides. Included in this topic are the Simple Trigonometric Functions and the Inverse
Trigonometric Functions. Initially, you might think that you actually not have any use for them,
but you’d be surprised. They are actually used in the engineering field pretty often, from figuring
out the maximum strength of an object in a certain angle could take before breaking, for example.

• Simple Trigonometric Functions


The basic trigonometric functions are defined as
when 0<θ<π/2, based on the right-angled triangle:
If we consider the angle θ and label the
sides with respect to θ, then a is the length of the
"adjacent" side, b is the length of the "opposite"
side, and c is the length of the hypotenuse. Then
the basic trigonometric functions can be expressed
as follows:

An easier way to remember this is by using the infamous SOH-CAH-TOA method.


“SOH” stands for “Sine = Opposite/Hypotenuse”, “CAH” for “Cosine = Adjacent/
Hypotenuse” and “TOA” for “Tangent = Opposite/Adjacent”.

Another way of defining the above would be with the use of the unit circle. If we
consider a circle with a radius of 1 unit, centered at the origin, then the angle θ inside the
circle describes a right triangle when we drop a perpendicular to the x x-axis from the
point of intersection with the circle. Now we have a right triangle that has a hypotenuse
equal to the radius of the circle, an adjacent side
equal to the x-coordinate of the point (x, y),(x,
y), and an opposite side equal to the y-coordinate.
This gives rise naturally to the following refined
definitions:
Since the radius is 1 in the unit circle, this

means that x = cos θ and y = sin θ


These definitions have the advantage of
being compatible with the triangle definition
above, as well as allowing the evaluation of angles
corresponding to any real number, which brings us
to the fact that there are certain values of these
functions that would do you good to keep in mind:

The above table simply shows the corresponding values of a right triangle
depending on the size of the angle and vice versa. You can check them out by
experimenting on your calculator. For example, try inputting Sin(90) into your calculator
and you would get 1 as a result.

• Inverse Trigonometric Functions

Inverse trigonometric functions,


like any other inverse function, are
mathematical operators that undo the
function's operation. For example,
using the same right triangle from the
one mentioned in the previous topic:
Considering that , where the angle is the input (or
argument) to the function and the ratio of sides is the output of the function result. The
inverse function reverses this operation, taking the ratio of sides as input and returning
the angle as output:

This means that compared to the Simple Trigonometric Functions, the Inverse
Trigonometric Functions are useful whenever we know the sides of a triangle and want
to find its angles.
It should be noted that the negative exponent this time does not mean the
reciprocal of the value.
Identities
The Trigonometric Identities are equations that are true for Right Angled Triangles. There
are a whole lot of identities in Trigonometry so below will be a list of most if not all of them.
These identities are pretty self-explanatory and are very important especially when solving more
advanced equations related to engineering. Without these identities, trust me when I say you’d
be stuck forever in even some of the simplest problems.
Of course, even these identities were derived from somewhere, but it’d be more practical
remember most of the simplified identities as they already are.

• The more important identities

Defining relations for tangent, cotangent, secant, and cosecant in terms of sine
and cosine.

The Pythagorean formula for sines and cosines. Probably the most important
trigonometric identity.

Identities expressing trig functions in terms of their complements. Each of the


six trig functions is equal to its co-function evaluated at the complementary angle.
Periodicity of trig functions. Sine, cosine, secant, and cosecant have period
2π while tangent and cotangent have period π.

Identities for negative angles. Sine, tangent, cotangent, and cosecant are
odd functions while cosine and secant are even functions.

Ptolemy’s identities, the sum and difference formulas for sine and cosine.

Double angle formulas for sine and cosine. There are three forms for the double
angle formula regarding cosine, but you only need to know one, but should still be able
to derive the other two from the Pythagorean formula.

• The less important identities.

These identities are not as important as they can be derived from the
ones mentioned above, they it takes a lot of work to do so at times.
The Pythagorean formula for tangents and secants.

Identities expressing trig functions in terms of their supplements.

Sum, difference, and double angle formulas for tangent.

The half angle formulas. The ones for sine and cosine take the positive or
negative square root depending on the quadrant of the angle θ/2. For example, if θ/2 is
an acute angle, then the positive root would be used.

Now, calm down… yes these are a lot to take in. Don’t worry, even the best of us has not
memorized all the identities. Still though, personally the way I like to memorize formulas or even
identities that seem to be too many is try and look for patterns… at times I even make up a
pattern of my own that only I can understand. Don’t give up, we all have our own ways.
References:
• https://brilliant.org/wiki/basic-trigonometric-functions/
• https://brilliant.org/wiki/inverse-trigonometric-functions/
• https://brilliant.org/wiki/hyperbolic-trigonometric-functions/
• https://www2.clarku.edu/faculty/djoyce/trig/identities.html
• https://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/trigonometric-identities.html

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