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October 26th, 2009, 07:11 PM
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| |  Weird Trig problem about exact values of sin, cos, and tan
In this assignment of mine, I'm given an isosceles triangle with sides A, B, and C and <ACB = 90 degrees.
It's an isoceles triangle, so the other two angles are 45 degrees each. But then the problem says "Find the exact values of sin A, cos A, and tan A, based on geometric principles; do not use a calculator."
How do I go about answering this? According to my calculator, sin(45) and cos(45) = .707, while tan(45) = 1--great, so now what? How would I go about figuring that out without a calculator...? |
October 26th, 2009, 07:28 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by paradise737  In this assignment of mine, I'm given an isosceles triangle with sides A, B, and C and <ACB = 90 degrees.
It's an isoceles triangle, so the other two angles are 45 degrees each. But then the problem says "Find the exact values of sin A, cos A, and tan A, based on geometric principles; do not use a calculator."
How do I go about answering this? According to my calculator, sin(45) and cos(45) = .707, while tan(45) = 1--great, so now what? How would I go about figuring that out without a calculator...? | http://id.mind.net/~zona/mmts/miscel...90/t454590.gif
Those are the ratios. Use sin(45) to say (Side adjacent)/(Hypotenuse). |
October 26th, 2009, 08:13 PM
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Originally Posted by WhoCares357 | Thanks, that really helps--I'm not sure why I didn't make the connection that .707 was the square root of 1. |
October 27th, 2009, 12:02 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by paradise737 Thanks, that really helps--I'm not sure why I didn't make the connection that .707 was the square root of 1. | I believe that what you intended to type was "0.707 is HALF the square root of 2" 
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