Thursday, 23 January 2014

trigonometry - How do you find the sine and cosine from the tangent?



I'm given the problem:




If cot(θ)=1.5 and θ is in quadrant 3, what is the value of sin(θ)?





I looked at all the related answers I could find on here, but I haven't been able to piece together the answer I need from them.



I know that sin2θ+cos2θ=1, cot2θ+1=csc2θ, and csc2θ=1sin2θ



Substituting 3.25 for cot2θ+1 and 1sin2θ for csc2θ I get:



3.25=1sin2θ



then




sinθ=13.25



This doesn't seem correct though. Can anyone help please?



edit: Sorry, meant to make that answer negative.


Answer



If cotθ=1.5, then tanθ=23. This means that if θ were in the first quadrant, it would be one of the angles of a right triangle whose legs measure 2 and 3 and whose hypotenuse measures 22+32=13. Specifically, it would be the angle opposite the side of length 2. Sketch the triangle, and you’ll see that in that case we’d have sinθ=213.



But θ is in the third quadrant, not the first; what effect does this have on its sine?


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