3 Basic Trigonometry

Trigonometry comprises everything that relates lines, shapes and angles. As such, it is
the mathematics in control of distance, position, and perspective.

The Very Basics

An angle is what you get when you rotate a line around a point. The distance turned is
measured in degrees. A full turn, bringing the line around in a circle, makes 360. We

measure angles anticlockwise .

The Chaldeans, astrologers who lived in ancient Iraq, decided on 360 as the
approximate number of days in the year. They wanted to divide the zodiac into one
degree for every day, so the sun moved one degree in a day. We’ve been stuck with
the number ever since.

The simplest closed shape that can be made is the triangle; just three lines making
three angles, and those three angles always add up to 180. For example,

To simplify things still further, we specify that one of the three angles must be 90;
this makes a right-angled triangle.

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(Why right-angled? A mason’s term. Because house corners, windows and door
frames are built at 90, this is the “right angle” to set them.)

Angles of less than 90 are termed acute angles; angles of more than 90 are termed
obtuse.

Certain relationships between the angles and sides of a right-angled triangle remain
constant, no matter how the angles and sides themselves may change. These
relationships give rise to Pythagoras’ theorem, and to the trigonometric ratios, the
most important of which are the sine, the cosine and the tangent.

Pythagoras’ Theorem

Proved by the magician and numerologist Pythagoras around 500 years BC. He
sacrificed a white bull to the gods to celebrate.

The gist of Pythagoras’ theorem is that, no matter what theta is, if you square the
adjacent, square the opposite, and add them, you get the square of the hypotenuse,
adjacent 2 + opposite 2 = hypotenuse 2 .

More formally, the hypotenuse is as long as the square root of the sum of the squares
on the other two sides. That is,
hypotenuse = adjacent 2 + opposite 2 .

Or visually,

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Example 1. What length is the hypotenuse in a triangle whose other sides are 5 and 8
units long?

By Pythagoras’ theorem,
hypotenuse = 52 + 82 = 25 + 64 = 89 = 9.434

Example 2. What length is the adjacent in a triangle of hypotenuse 5 units and

opposite 3 units?

Rearranging Pythagoras’ theorem for the adjacent,

adjacent 2 = hypotenuse 2 − opposite 2
adjacent = 52 − 32 = 25 − 9 = 16 = 4

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Exercise 1.

What length is the unknown side u of each of the following triangles?

1. Opposite = 4, adjacent = 7, hypotenuse = u.
2. Opposite = u, adjacent = 3, hypotenuse = 5.
3. Opposite = 12, adjacent = u, hypotenuse = 169.
4. Opposite = 4.2, adjacent = u, hypotenuse = 26.8.
5. Opposite = u, adjacent = 8.4, hypotenuse = 43.2.

Complications in Non-Euclidean Space

Consider a triangle drawn on the outer surface of a sphere.

The angles   and  are always broader than they would be if drawn on a plane,
and so they add up to greater than 180. This is easy to see on a small scale, but image
the sphere is the surface of a planet. Then the curvature is very difficult to see on a
small scale.

Conversely, consider a triangle drawn on the interior of a sphere.

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Here    add up to less than 180.

It is possible that the structure of the universe is better described as a curved than a
flat surface. In that case, triangles on a stellar or galactic scale will not be described
by plane geometry. Evidence at the moment is that we do live in a “flat” universe. The
point at which we can fire and measure laser beams in extra-galactic regions of space
comparatively empty of matter, we’ll be sure, but until further notice, please keep
using Euclid.

The Trigonometric Ratios

For any one value of theta- that is, for any fixed angle in a right-angled triangle- the
lengths of the hypotenuse, the adjacent and the opposite are always in the same ratios.
So it’s worth giving the ratios their own names.
opposite
sine  = sin  =
hypotenuse
adjacent
cosine  = cos =
hypotenuse
opposite
tangent  = tan =
adjacent

These names are very old. Sine is Latin for “the fold of a toga”, cosine for the fold
opposite this. Tangent is Latin for “just touching” or “lying on” those folds. They are
ancient Roman sartorial terms.

There are several good mnemonics for the ratios. A traditional one is
Some Of Her Children Are Having Trouble Over Algebra.
One for the history buffs is
Spite Or Homesickness Caused Adolf Hitler To Occupy Austria.
But most students just use the fictional Apache chief, SOHCAHTOA.

The important thing to realise is that, if you know theta and any one of the sides, then
you can find out sin or cos or tan as appropriate, and then calculate the other two
sides. All scientific calculators have buttons for these functions

The names above the buttons are inverse trigonometric ratios (we’ll get to those).

Example 3. Let theta=30. Suppose we know the opposite to be 5cm long. What must
the adjacent and hypotenuse sides be?

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Then we can rewrite
opposite
tan =
adjacent
to
opposite 5
adjacent = =
tan tan 30 

To find tan30, depending on your calculator model, press which

should give the answer 0.5774.
5
= = 8.660cm
0.5774

Now from
adjacent
cos =
hypotenuse

(though we could have used sin), we get

adjacent 5
hypotenuse = =
cos cos30

Find out cos, , which should give the answer 0.8660, so

8.660
= = 10cm .
0.8660

In fact, as long as we know theta is 30, and the length of the opposite, we can rely on
these proportions no matter what size the triangle is. Consider the triangle formed by

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Llandovery, Bletchley and Newark-on-Trent. It so happens that this is 30 at
Llandovery. So, if we also know the distance between Bletchley and Newark, we can
work out the distances to Llandovery.

From Bletchley to Newark happens to be 124km, so;

Exercise 2.

What length are the unknown sides of each of the following triangles?
1. Adjacent = 7, =60
2. Opposite = 5.5, =44.44.
3. Hypotenuse = 40.77, =82.34.
4. Adjacent = 12.6, =22.5.
5. Opposite = 6.3, =45.

Inverse Trigonometric Functions

Above the trigonometric function buttons on a scientific calculator are the inverse
trigonometric functions.

These return you from a particular sine, cosine or tangent back to the angle it came
from. They are usually called the arcsine, arccosine and arctangent (and are labelled
this way on some calculators).

In the following triangle, angle U1 is unknown:

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but we do know its sine,
opposite 8.5
sin U1 = = = 0.7720 .
hypotenuse 11.01

Therefore, U1 is the arcsin of 0.7720,

sin −1 0.7720 = 50.5338 .

On a typical calculator, that‘s 0.7720 50.5338. We could equally

have used cos U1 = 7/11.01 or tan U1 = 8.5/7. When we come to do vectors, the tan-1
function will be particularly important.

Exercise 3.

What are the unknown sides of each of the following triangles?