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sin and cos


noz92

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they are ratios of the sides of a right triangle. like the sine of 60degrees is 1/2.

 

sine(sin) is opposite side over hypotenuse

cosecant(csc) is the inverse of sin. it is hypotenuse over opposite side

 

cosine(cos) is the cofunction of sine. it is adjacent side over hypotenuse

secant(sec) is the inverse of cosine. it is hypotenuse over adjacent side

 

tangent(tan) is opposite side over adjacent side.

cotangent(cot) is both the inverse and cofunction of tangent. it is adjacent side over opposite side

 

in the first quadrant, all six trig functions are positive

 

in the second quadrant, sine and cosecant are positive while the rest are negative

 

in the third quadrant, tangent and cotangent are positive while the rest are negative

 

in the forth quadrant, cosine and secant are positive while the rest are negative

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Erm, I think you'll find that csc, sec and cot are not the inverses of their associated functions. Rather,

 

[math]\csc(x) = \frac{1}{\sin(x)}[/math], [math]\sec(x) = \frac{1}{\cos(x)}[/math], and [math]\cot(x) = \frac{1}{\tan(x)}[/math]

 

Inverse functions are arcsin, arccos and arctan respectively. Totally different things.

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if i hit sin then the inverse button on my calc, i get the csc of what i put in for sin. what was the word for them then? reciprocal functions?

The inverse you are thinking of is the "multiplicative inverse," which is the same thing as reciprocal. For a nonzero number x, its multiplicative inverse is 1/x. This is different from an inverse function. For a function f(x), its inverse is a function g(x) such that f(g(x)) = 1 for all x.

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How is calculation of sine and cosine hardwired ? Do you go about exploiting series expansion or do you use a definate integral ?
I think they use taylor series and such, but I'm not that sure. I don't think that strictly numerical methods would work in general since most of them require the calculation of the function value or its derivative (which defeats the point in this case).
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So is calculation of sin and cos hardwired or is it computed using simpler operations ?
Even though I obviously don't know enough about this to justify trying to answer twice, here goes: if by "hardwired" you mean that the calculator simply stores a huge array of ordered pairs corresponding to a sine or cosine function so that the input number is matched with the appropriate output number (rather than it being calculated by the computer upon execution), no, I'm almost positive that it's not done that way. In fact, I believe that sin and cos functions in one of the C math libraries can take a long time to compute (compared to the basic +, -, *, / operators), which would indicate that a calculation (such as a taylor series) is being performed.

 

But when you look at the functions, there's a shockingly small range of values that need be calculated -- all you really need is one quarter of a period (e.g. the part from sin(0) to sin(pi/2)), since the rest of the function, or both, actually, is/are composed of identical curves that have been flipped around. So they may only need a few terms of the Taylor series to get decent accuracy.

 

So yeah, I'd say it's a bunch of simple polynomial operations, like ".4-.4*.4*.4/6+.4*.4*.4*.4*.4/120" or something.

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Even though I obviously don't know enough about this to justify trying to answer twice' date=' here goes: if by "hardwired" you mean that the calculator simply stores a huge array of ordered pairs corresponding to a sine or cosine function so that the input number is matched with the appropriate output number (rather than it being calculated by the computer upon execution), no, I'm almost positive that it's not done that way. In fact, I believe that sin and cos functions in one of the C math libraries can take a long time to compute (compared to the basic +, -, *, / operators), which would indicate that a calculation (such as a taylor series) is being performed.

 

But when you look at the functions, there's a shockingly small range of values that need be calculated -- all you really need is one quarter of a period (e.g. the part from sin(0) to sin(pi/2)), since the rest of the function, or both, actually, is/are composed of identical curves that have been flipped around. So they may only need a few terms of the Taylor series to get decent accuracy.

 

So yeah, I'd say it's a bunch of simple polynomial operations, like ".4-.4*.4*.4/6+.4*.4*.4*.4*.4/120" or something.[/quote']

 

I did not mean a ROM when I said hardwired.

I meant more of an electronic circuit that does sin/cos calculation. ( Think of adders, dividers, sqare root calculators etc. )

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I don't think so. You can derive sin/cos quite accurately and quickly without having dedicated circuits. As far as I'm aware, basic calculators usually have only the most basic of operations, namely addition and multiplication and from those you can derive every other function on the calculator.

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Actually, I recently had a discussion with a graduate student and he was telling me that we calculate sines and cosines with Taylor series, but the calculator does not use this.

 

Calculators use a variable storing system and a program called CORDIC. The explanation he gave was kind of abstract, but at least now I'm sure the calculator does not use approximations or Taylor.

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Yes, Taylor series is slow and has a limited range. It's much more common to use an iterative algorithm that locates the position of a point x degress from the axis on a circle, and derives the sin and cosine from that, or, as has been mentioned above, the CORDIC algorithm. To generalize, CORDIC is an iterative process that usually uses a tangent table, but can also be done with smaller and smaller vector rotations. You can read about it here: http://www.worldserver.com/turk/computergraphics/FixedPointTrigonometry.pdf

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  • 2 months later...

I understand that [math]\sin = \frac{opposite}{hypotonuse}[/math], and the other ones, but what do we use to find the leanths of opposite and hypotonuse. [math]\sin 76 \thickaprox 0.929776485[/math], and [math]\cos 76 \thickaprox 0.368124552[/math], I understand that and all the others, but what unit of mesurement do we use to find the leanths of the opposite, hypotonuse, and adjecent sides?

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I understand that and all the others, but what unit of mesurement do we use to find the leanths of the opposite, hypotonuse, and adjecent sides?

 

whatever you want. m, cm, in., ft, mi, km, ...

 

you don't have enough info with just an angle and it's sine/cosine to find solve the triangle.

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at least another side.

 

law of sines

[math]\frac{a}{sin\alpha}=\frac{b}{sin\beta}=\frac{c}{sin\gamma}[/math]

 

law of cosines

[math]c_^2=a^2+b^2-2ab(cos\gamma)[/math]

a thing i like about the law of cosines is that if you put a right angle in for [math]\gamma[/math], you get the pythagorean theorem.

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