Skip to main content
Mathematics LibreTexts

A.6 Trigonometry — Special Triangles

  • Page ID
    89654
  • \( \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \) \( \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} \)\(\newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \(\newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)\(\newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}\)

    special_triangles.svg

    From the above pair of special triangles we have

    \begin{align*} \sin \frac{\pi}{4} &= \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}} & \sin \frac{\pi}{6} &= \frac{1}{2} & \sin \frac{\pi}{3} &= \frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}\\ \cos \frac{\pi}{4} &= \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}} & \cos \frac{\pi}{6} &= \frac{\sqrt{3}}{2} & \cos \frac{\pi}{3} &= \frac{1}{2}\\ \tan \frac{\pi}{4} &= 1 & \tan \frac{\pi}{6} &= \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}} & \tan \frac{\pi}{3} &= \sqrt{3} \end{align*}


    This page titled A.6 Trigonometry — Special Triangles is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Joel Feldman, Andrew Rechnitzer and Elyse Yeager via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.