7: The Unit Circle - Sine and Cosine Functions
The trigonometric functions are functions of an angle. and relate the angles of a triangle to the lengths of its sides. They are important in the study of triangles and modeling periodic phenomena, among many other applications.
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- 7.0: Introduction to The Unit Circle- Sine and Cosine Functions
- A function that repeats its values in regular intervals is known as a periodic function. The graphs of such functions show a general shape reflective of a pattern that keeps repeating. This means the graph of the function has the same output at exactly the same place in every cycle. And this translates to all the cycles of the function having exactly the same length.
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- 7.1: Angles
- An angle is formed from the union of two rays, by keeping the initial side fixed and rotating the terminal side. The amount of rotation determines the measure of the angle. An angle is in standard position if its vertex is at the origin and its initial side lies along the positive x-axis. A positive angle is measured counterclockwise from the initial side and a negative angle is measured clockwise.
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- 7.2: Right Triangle Trigonometry
- We have previously defined the sine and cosine of an angle in terms of the coordinates of a point on the unit circle intersected by the terminal side of the angle. In this section, we will see another way to define trigonometric functions using properties of right triangles.
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- 7.4: The Other Trigonometric Functions
- Trigonometric functions allow us to specify the shapes and proportions of objects independent of exact dimensions. We have already defined the sine and cosine functions of an angle. Though sine and cosine are the trigonometric functions most often used, there are four others. Together they make up the set of six trigonometric functions. In this section, we will investigate the remaining functions.
Thumbnail: The cosine function of an angle tt equals the x-value of the endpoint on the unit circle of an arc of length \(t\).
Contributors and Attributions
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Jay Abramson (Arizona State University) with contributing authors. Textbook content produced by OpenStax College is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 license. Download for free at https://openstax.org/details/books/precalculus .