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50 Points!! How do you find the sine, cosine, and tangent values on the unit circle? Provide an example.

User Roger Liu
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2 Answers

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the point of the unit circle is that it makes other parts of the mathematics easier and neater. For instance, in the unit circle, for any angle θ, the trig values for sine and cosine are clearly nothing more than sin(θ) = y and cos(θ) = x.
User SimonMayer
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Hello !

To find the sine,cosine,tangent for a point on a circle,it is mandatory to trace the point projections on coordinate axes.


For example,if you have a point A on the circle,the projection on the x-axis may be A₂ ,and the projection on the y-axis may be A₁ .
OA₁ - the length from the center of the circle (O) to the y-axis projection
OA₂ - the length from the center of the circle to the x-axis projection



The hypotenuse (AO) is √(AA₁² + AA₂²)

Now,the formulas :
sin θ = AA₂/OA
cos θ = AA₁/OA
tan θ = AA₂/OA₂
cot θ = AA₁/AA₂

You have a drawing below,I hope you will understand :)
Have a nice day !

50 Points!! How do you find the sine, cosine, and tangent values on the unit circle-example-1
User Bernard Polman
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