This was just added, and I have to admit I don't really understand it:
- An alternative is to remember that sin starts at 0 and grows to 1, cos starts at 1 and shrinks to 0, and tan starts at 0 and grows to +∞. That avoids the requirement of remembering what the the adjacent, opposite and hypotenuse are called. For word-related mnemonics for remembering what the functions do, for sin one could imagine a holy spring in equilibrium (the total forces at 0), and one sins by punching the holy spring so it moves away, and the forces on it approach 1. For cos (pronouncing cos as caus) one could imagine a spring which starts off not moving, and causes a vibration, so the total forces on the spring start off as 1, going down to 0 as the spring relaxes. For tan, one could imagine when someone is having a sun tan, the photons start at the sun, and their distance from the sun practically increases to to infinity on the way, because they travel so far.
This might work for the author, but does it make sense to anyone else? What's a "holy spring" anyway? moink 17:52, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- A holy spring, or sacred spring, was just supposed to be a spring, which would be sinful to hit. I've shortened it a bit, without any puns on sin, cos or tan.
- Thanks Cyp, I like it better now. Mnemonics are often very personal things. moink 20:08, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
There used to be an entry here that the trigonometric functions for angles => 90° had not been dealt with. I am putting this reminder here. That surely comes before trig identitites. RoseParks
I removed it because the unit circle section takes care of all angles. The section and graphic could use refinement, but that's what the wikipedia is for :).---- I see box for a graphic of a unit circle, but no graphic? Anyone else see it?? RoseParks
I'm trying to send the gif, but the guy I'm supposed to email it to is having trouble recieving it. I'm going to refine the graphic and try again later.
which notation is more common for inverses: arcsin or sin^-1 ? Which came first? -- Tarquin 12:00 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)
Id like somewhere to link to (for an article on the derivatives of trig functions) which explains some various algebraic rules of trig functions, such as those governing sinx(x + h). Maybe Ill have to do it myself. Pizza Puzzle