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The Pythagorean Theorem - Educational Outreach

The Pythagorean Theorem - Educational Outreach

The Pythagorean Theorem - Educational Outreach

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This one characteristic alone suggests that (at least intheory) trigonometric functions can be used to model thebehavior of any natural or contrived phenomena having anoscillating or repeating action over time such as theinduced ground-wave motion of earthquakes or the inducedatmospheric-wave motion due to various types of music orvoice transmission.C( x,y)1yFigure 3.16: Trigonometry via General Right Triangle<strong>The</strong> six trigonometric functions also can be definedusing a general right triangle. Let ABC be an arbitraryright triangle with angle as shown on the previous pagein Figure 3.16. <strong>The</strong> triangle ABC is similar totriangle ( 0,0),(1,0),( x,y)guarantees:1]3]5]( 0,0) x (1,0 )ABy BCACsin( ) 2] csc()1 AC 1y BCx ABACcos( ) 4] sec()1 AC 1x ABy BCx ABtan( ) 6] cot( ) x ABy AC. This right-triangle similarity120

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