Trigonometry

Appendix D

Angles

Angles can be measured in degrees or in radians (abbreviated as rad).

Radians measure the ratio between the arc length and the radius. Con-
sider θ below:

a r
θ

Since the length of the arc is proportional to the size of the angle, and since
the entire circle has circumference 2πr and central angle 2π, we have
θ a
= .
2π 2πr
Solving this equation for θ and for a, we get
a
θ= a = rθ.
r
1
Example 1. Find the radian measures of 90◦ and 360◦.

Solution.

2
The angle given by a complete revolution contains 360◦, which is the same
as 2π rad. Therefore,
π rad = 180◦
and
 ◦
180 π
1 rad = ≈ 57.3◦ 1◦ = rad ≈ 0.017 rad .
π 180
Example 2.

(a) Find the radian measure of 60◦.

Solution.

5π
(b) Express rad in degrees.
4
Solution.

3
In this course we use radians to measure angles except when otherwise
indicated. The table below gives the correspondence between degree and
radian measures of some common angles.

Degrees 0◦ 30◦ 45◦ 60◦ 90◦ 120◦ 135◦ 150◦ 180◦ 270◦ 360◦

π π π π 2π 3π 5π 3π
Radians 0 4 π 2π
6 3 2 3 4 6 2

Example 3.

(a) If the radius of a circle is 5 cm, what angle is subtended by an arc of

6 cm?
Solution.

(b) If a circle has radius 3 cm, what is the length of an arc subtended by
3π
a central angle of rad?
8
Solution.

4
 An angle is in standard
position when we place
its vertex at the origin
of a coordinate system
and its initial side on the
positive x-axis.

A positive angle is
obtained by rotating the
initial side counterclock-
wise until it coincides
with the terminal side.

Negative angles are ob-

tained by clockwise rota-
tion.

Example 4. Draw the following angles in standard position:

π 3π 5π 11π
1, − , , − ,
2 4 4 4
Solution.

5
Notice that different angles can have the same terminal side. For instance
3π/4, −5π/4 and 11π/4 have the same initial and terminal side because
3π 5π 3π 11π
− 2π = − + 2π =
4 4 4 4
and 2π rad represents a complete revolution.

The trigonometric functions

For an acute angle θ the six trigonometric functions are defined as ratios
of lengths of sides of a right triangle as follows:
opp hyp
sin θ = csc θ =
hypotenuse hyp opp
opposite adj hyp
θ cos θ = sec θ =
hyp adj
adjacent
opp adj
tan θ = cot θ =
adj opp

This definition doesn’t apply to obtuse or negative angles, so for any angle
θ in standard position we let P (x, y) be any point on the terminal side of
θ and we let r be the distance |OP |. Then we define:

P (x, y) y r
sin θ = csc θ =
r y
θ x r
r cos θ = sec θ =
r x
y x
tan θ = cot θ =
x y

6
Notice the following:

1. Since division by 0 is not defined, tan θ and sec θ are undefined when
x = 0 and csc θ and cot θ are undefined when y = 0.
2. If θ is a number, the convention is that sin θ means the sine of the
angle whose radian measure is θ. For example, the expression sin 3
implies that we are dealing with an angle of 3 rad. On the other hand,
if we want to know the sine of the angle 3◦, we would write sin 3◦.

Standard triangles

We will make frequent use of the following two special-angled triangles.

π
6

√ π/4 √
2 2 3
1

π/4 π/3
1 1

7
The CAST rule

The signs of the trigonometric functions for angles in each of the four
quadrants can be remembered by means of the CAST rule shown in the
figure.

sin θ ⩾ 0 S A All ⩾ 0

tan θ ⩾ 0 T C cos θ ⩾ 0

2π
Example 5. Find the exact trigonometric ratios for θ = .
3
Solution.

8
 2 π
Example 6. If cos θ = and 0 < θ < , find the other trigonometric
5 2
functions of θ.

Solution.

9
Trigonometric identities

A trigonometric identity is a relationship among the trigonometric func-

tions. The most elementary are the following, which are immediate conse-
quences of the definitions of the trigonometric functions:
1 1 1
csc θ = sec θ = cot θ = (1)
sin θ cos θ tan θ

sin θ cos θ
tan θ = cot θ =
cos θ sin θ
The Pythagorean Theorem tells us that x2 + y 2 = r2. Therefore,

2 y 2 x2 x2 + y 2 r 2
2
sin θ + cos θ = 2 + 2 = = 2 = 1.
r r r2 r
We have therefore proved one of the most useful of all trigonometric iden-
tities:
sin2 θ + cos2 θ = 1. (2)
If we now divide both sides of Equation (2) by cos2 θ and use Equations
(1), we get
sin2 θ cos2 θ 1
+ = .
cos2 θ cos2 θ cos2 θ
Therefore,
tan2 θ + 1 = sec2 θ. (3)
Similarly, if we divide both sides of Equation (2) by sin2 θ, we get
sin2 θ cos2 θ 1
+ = ,
sin2 θ sin2 θ sin2 θ
and hence
1 + cot2 θ = csc2 θ. (4)
10
The identities
sin(−θ) = − sin θ (5)
cos(−θ) = cos θ (6)
show that the sine function is odd and that the cosine function is even.

Since the angles θ and θ + 2π have the same terminal side, we have
sin(θ + 2π) = sin θ cos(θ + 2π) = cos θ. (7)
These identities show that the sine and cosine functions are periodic with
2π.

The remaining trigonometric identities are all consequences of two basic

identities called the addition formulas:
sin(x + y) = sin x cos y + cos x sin y (8)
cos(x + y) = cos x cos y − sin x sin y. (9)
Next, substituting −y for y in Equations (8) and (9) and using Equations
(5) and (6), we obtain the following identities:
sin(x − y) = sin(x + (−y))
= sin x cos(−y) + cos x sin(−y)
= sin x cos y − cos x sin y
and
cos(x − y) = cos(x + (−y))
= cos x cos(−y) − sin x sin(−y)
= cos x cos y + sin x sin y.
These identities are called the subtraction formulas:
sin(x − y) = sin x cos y − cos x sin y (10)
cos(x − y) = cos x cos y + sin x sin y. (11)
11
Exercise 1. Prove the following identities:
tan x + tan y
tan(x + y) = (12)
1 − tan x tan y
tan x − tan y
tan(x − y) = . (13)
1 + tan x tan y

If we put y = x in the addition formulas (8) and (9), we get the double-
angle formulas:
sin 2x = 2 sin x cos x (14)
cos 2x = cos2 x − sin2 x. (15)
Then, by using the identity sin2 x + cos2 x = 1, we obtain the following
alternate forms of the double-angle formula for cos 2x:
cos 2x = 2 cos2 x − 1 (16)
cos 2x = 1 − 2 sin2 x. (17)
If we now solve these equations for sin2 x and cos2 x, we get the following
half-angle formulas:
1 + cos 2x
cos2 x = (18)
2
1 − cos 2x
sin2 x = . (19)
2
Finally, we state the the product formulas, which can be deduced from
Equations (8)–(11):
1
sin x cos y = [sin(x + y) + sin(x − y)] (20)
2
1
cos x cos y = [cos(x + y) + cos(x − y)] (21)
2
1
sin x sin y = [cos(x − y) − cos(x − y)]. (22)
2

12
Example 7. Prove the following identities:
(a) (sin x + cos x)2 = 1 + sin 2x
sin θ
(b) = csc θ + cot θ
1 − cos θ

Solution.

13
Example 8. Find all the values of x in the interval [0, 2π] such that
sin x = sin 2x.

Solution.

14
Graphs of trigonometric functions

The graph of the function f (x) = sin x is obtained by plotting points for
0 ≤ x ≤ 2π and then using the periodic nature of the function to complete
the graph.
1 y

x
−3π − 52 π −2π − 32 π −π − 21 π 1
2π π 3
2π 2π 5
2π 3π

−1

Notice that sin x = 0 whenever x = πn, n ∈ Z.

Because of the identity

 π
cos x = sin x +
2
the graph of cosine is obtained by shifting the graph of sine by an amount
π
2 to the left.

1 y

x
−3π − 52 π −2π − 32 π −π − 21 π 1
2π π 3
2π 2π 5
2π 3π

−1

15
Both the sine and cosine functions have domain (−∞, ∞) and range
[−1, 1]. Thus, for all values of x, we have
−1 ≤ sin x ≤ 1 − 1 ≤ cos x ≤ 1.
Exercise 2. Sketch the graphs of the remaining trigonometric functions
and find the domain and range of each of them.

Solution.

16