Section 1: Trigonometry and Triangles
1 Calculating side lengths and angles via right
triangles
A right triangle has one angle equal to 90◦ . The side opposite to the right
angle is called the hypotenuse. The two remaining sides are the opposite and
adjacent sides. The opposite side is opposite to the angle we are examining (θ),
while the adjacent side is next to the angle, while not being the hypotenuse.
As you may recall, according to the Pythagorean theorem, the lengths of the
opposite side, the adjacent side, and the hypotenuse have the following
relationship:
adjacent2 + opposite2 = hypotenuse2
Sometimes, you may have seen this equation with the labels a, b, and c, where
they denote, respectively, the adjacent side (a), the opposite side(b), and the
hypotenuse (c). Then,
a2 + b2 = c2 .
Moreover, based on the angle θ, the sine, cosine and tangent can be defined as
follows:
opposite adjacent opposite
sin(θ) = , cos(θ) = , tan(θ) =
hypotenuse hypotenuse adjacent
1
In addition, the following must also hold for a right triangle:
sin(θ) = cos(90◦ − θ) and tan(θ) = cot(90◦ − θ)
Now, as an example, let’s consider two scenarios: (1) a right triangle has an
acute angle θ, whose opposite side has the length of 6 units and whose
hypotenuse is 10 units. Determine the size of θ. (2) A right triangle has side
lengths x, y and z such that x < y < z. It is known that x = 1 and z = 5.
What is the length of side y?
The solutions to these questions are presented as follows:
• The definition of sine can be used here. As sin(θ) = 10 6
= 0.6. Now,
−1 ◦ ◦
θ = sin (0.6) ≈ 36.87 . Thus, θ is approximately 36.87 .
• The Pythagorean theorem can be used here.
2 Exercises
Exercise 1.1: A right triangle has legs of lengths 6 cm and 8 cm. Find
the length of the hypotenuse.
Exercise 1.2: In a right triangle, the side opposite to angle θ is 9, the
adjacent side is 12. Find tan(θ), the length of the hypotenuse, and deter-
mine the size of the angle θ.
Exercise 1.3: Given that sin(θ) = 35 , find cos(θ) and tan(θ).
Exercise 1.4: A right triangle has an adjacent side of length 4 cm (with
respect to angle θ), and a hypotenuse of length 5 cm. Determine cos(θ),
and the value of θ in degrees.
Exercise 1.5: A ramp creates a 30◦ angle with the ground. If the ramp
is 6 meters long, how high is the top of the ramp? Also, determine how
far does the ramp extend horizontally.
3 Trigonometric functions via the unit circle
The sine and cosine can be defined based on a right triangle, and a set angle θ,
based on the unit circle sketch below. A unit circle is a circle in the coordinate
system is a circle that has the radius of 1 and is centered around the origin,
(0, 0). The right triangle is formed by having the hypotenuse of 1 (the radius),
and the angle θ.
2
The point (x, y), placed on the boundary of the unit circle, is defined by the
sine and cosine functions as: (x, y) = (cos(θ), sin(θ)).
According to what we see in the unit circle and the Pythagorean theorem, it
must hold that:
cos2 (θ) + sin2 (θ) = 1
Equivalently, using other trigonometric identities, the Pythagorean theorem
for the unit circle can be written as tan2 (θ) + 1 = sec2 (θ) or as
1 + cot2 (θ) = csc2 (θ). How to derive these from the identity using sine and
cosine will be left as an exercise.
The unit circle can be used to exactly determine many values achieved by sine
and cosine. Recall from calculus that these trigonometric functions can only
take on values in the range [−1, 1].
Some common values of sine and cosine, that you should remember and know
how to derive, are detailed in the unit circle below:
3
As an example, by looking
√
at the graph above, you can easily determine that
◦ ◦ 2
sin(45 ) = cos(45 ) = 2 . Similarly, in order to determine the sine and cosine
of θ = 120◦ . First, you can observe that this lies in Quadrant II in the
coordinate system. Notice that 180◦ − 120◦ = 60◦ . Thus:
√
◦ 1 ◦ 3
cos(120 ) = − , and sin(120 ) = .
2 2
Finally, it is important to note that at this point, you are expected to know
how to convert among degrees and radians. Note that πrad = 180◦ .
4 Exercises
Exercise 2.1: What are the coordinates of the point on the unit circle
corresponding to 60◦ ?
Exercise 2.2: Evaluate cos(180◦ ), sin(270◦ ) and tan(45◦ ). Recall that
sin(θ)
tan(θ) = cos(θ) .
Exercise 2.3: If a point on the unit circle is (0, 1), what is the corre-
sponding angle? How about (0, −1)?
5
Exercise 2.4: If cos(θ) = 13 and θ is in Quadrant I, find sin(θ).
3
Exercise 2.5: If sin(θ) = 5 and θ is in Quadrant I, find cos(θ).
5 Equations involving trigonometric functions
So far, you should know how to solve equations of the form sin(x) = a,
cos(x) = a and tan(x) = a. It is important that you know how to also solve
more advanced trigonometric equations. Note that you can use the same
algebraic tools and tricks to make progress with trigonometric equations as you
have used when solving, for example, linear, quadratic, or rational equations.
As an example, let’s first consider
√ the following trigonometric equations and
solve them: (1) 2 cos(x) = 3 for x ∈ [0, 2π], (2) (sin(x) − 1)(sin(x) + 1) = 0,
and (3) 4 sin(x) + 2 = 0.
The solutions are as follows:
√ √
1. For 2 cos(x) = 3, first we divide both sides by 2 to obtain cos(x) = 23 .
Then, if you observe the unit circle, you can see that in this case x must
be either π6 (30◦ ) or 11π ◦
6 (330 ). Note that these are the only solutions to
the equation as we are restricted to values between 0 and 2π.
2. For (sin(x) − 1)(sin(x) + 1) = 0, we first get rid of the brackets and
obtain the equation sin2 (x) − 1 = 0, thus sin2 (x) = 1 which gives either
sin(x) = 1 or sin(x) = −1. Let’s examine these cases separately. For
4
the first case, sin(x) = 1. Notice that an example of a solution to this
equation alone is x = π2 (or 90◦ ). However, this is not the only solution.
As the sine function is periodic, the solutions to this equation can be
generalized to be x = π2 + 2πn for n ∈ Z. The same holds for the other
equation, sin(x) = −1. With similar reasoning, we can obtain the solution
x = 3π2 + 2πn for n ∈ Z.
3. Finally, for the last example, consider 4 sin(x) + 2 = 0. First, subtracting
2 from both sides gives us 4 sin(x) = −2, and then dividing by 4 and
simplifying gives sin(x) = − 21 . Again, as there are no limitations to x,
there are infinitely many solutions as the sine function is periodic. Within
[0, 2π], there are two solutions; namely, x = 7π 11π
6 and x = 6 . Generalizing
from this, we have the following general solutions: x = 7π 6 + 2πn and
x = 11π6 + 2πn where n ∈ Z.
Note that there may also be cases such as cos(2x) = 1. In such a case,
assuming that x is restricted to values within [0, 2π], according to the unit
circle the solution would be 2x = 0 or 2x = 2π, which are equivalent in terms
of the periodicity of the cosine function. However, now note that we still have
to divide both sides by 2. This means that our solutions will be x = 0 and
x = π.
5.1 Trigonometric identities
You will be (or hopefully have been) provided a sheet of trigonometric
identities. It is important that you are able to derive some (equivalent)
trigonometric identities from other identities.
As an example, we will verify the trigonometric identities of (1)
sec(θ) 2
tan(θ) = csc(θ), and (2) (1 + sin(x))(1 + sin(−x)) = cos (x):
1
sec(θ) cos(θ) 1 cos(θ) 1
= csc(θ) = sin(θ)
= · = = csc(θ).
tan(θ) cos(θ) sin(θ) sin(θ)
cos(θ)
(1 + sin(x))(1 + sin(−x)) = (1 + sin(x))(1 − sin(x)) = 1 − sin(x) + sin(x) − sin2 (x)
= 1 − sin2 (x) = cos2 (x)
which follows from the Pythagorean theorem.
6 Exercises
Exercise 2.1: Solve the following sine equations for all values x ∈ [0, 2π]
as well as x ∈ R:
5
√
2
(a) sin(x) = − 2
(b) 2 sin(3x) = −1
√
3
(c) − sin(2x) = 2
(d) sin(4x) = 0
Exercise 2.2: Solve the following cosine equations for all values x ∈ [0, 2π]
as well as x ∈ R:
(a) cos(x) = −1
1
(b) cos2 (x) − 4 =0
(c) 3 cos(2x) = 0
Exercise 2.3: Solve the following tangent equations for all values x ∈
[0, 2π] as well as x ∈ R:
(a) tan(x) = 1
√
(b) tan(x) = 3
√
(c) tan(2x) = − 3
Exercise 2.4: Verify the following identities:
(a) cot(−x) cos(−x) + sin(−x) = − csc(x)
(b) csc(x) − sin(x) = cos(x) cot(x)
(c) tan2 (x) − sin2 (x) = tan2 (x) sin2 (x)
1 1
(d) sec(x)+tan(x) + sec(x)−tan(x) = 2 sec(x)
(e) cos2 (x)(1 + tan2 (x)) = 1
(f) cos(x + π2 ) = − sin(x)
Exercise 2.5: Find the exact value of the following:
π
(a) cos 12
(b) sin 9π
4
(c) sec 25π
6
(d) tan 4π
3