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Sine, Cosine, Tangent, Trigonometry Revision Notes From A-Level Maths Tutor

Trig ratios compared,sign changes in a full circle,for positive - 'all, sin tan, cos' in quadrants going anti-clockwise.

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5K views5 pages

Sine, Cosine, Tangent, Trigonometry Revision Notes From A-Level Maths Tutor

Trig ratios compared,sign changes in a full circle,for positive - 'all, sin tan, cos' in quadrants going anti-clockwise.

Uploaded by

A-level Maths Tutor
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Trigonometry Pure Maths topic notes

A-level Maths Tutor www.a-levelmathstutor.com [email protected]

Sine, Cosine, Tangent

The General Angle

Consider a radius of length '1' rotating anti-clockwise about the origin. The coordinates of
any point on the circle give the values of the adjacent and opposite sides of a right angled
triangle, with the radius the hypotenuse.

The General Angle (theta) is the included angle between the radius and the x-coordinate of
the point.

As the radius rotates the x and y values change. Hence the values of sine, cosine and
tangent also change.

The result is summarized in the diagram below.

A-level Maths Tutor www.a-levelmathstutor.com [email protected]


Trigonometry Pure Maths topic notes

A-level Maths Tutor www.a-levelmathstutor.com [email protected]

Example #1

A-level Maths Tutor www.a-levelmathstutor.com [email protected]


Trigonometry Pure Maths topic notes

A-level Maths Tutor www.a-levelmathstutor.com [email protected]

Example #2

A-level Maths Tutor www.a-levelmathstutor.com [email protected]


Trigonometry Pure Maths topic notes

A-level Maths Tutor www.a-levelmathstutor.com [email protected]

Sine

the sine graph starts at zero


it repeats itself every 360 degrees(or 2 pi)
y is never more than 1 or less than -1 (displacement from the x-axis is called the
amplitude)
a sin graph 'leads' a cos graph by 90 degrees

Cosine

the cosine graph starts at one


it repeats itself every 360 degrees(or 2 pi)
y is never more than 1 or less than -1 (displacement from the x-axis is called the
amplitude)
a cos graph 'lags' a sin graph by 90 degrees(pi/2) - this is termed a phase shift

A-level Maths Tutor www.a-levelmathstutor.com [email protected]


Trigonometry Pure Maths topic notes

A-level Maths Tutor www.a-levelmathstutor.com [email protected]

Tangent

the tangent graph starts at zero


it repeats itself every 180 degrees
y can vary between numbers approaching infinity and minus infinity

Further comparison

only the cosine function is symmetrical about the y-axis


all the functions are cyclic - the distance along the horizontal axis repeated is
called the period

A-level Maths Tutor www.a-levelmathstutor.com [email protected]

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