TRIGONOMETRY SUMMARY NOTES AND WORKED

EXAMPLES

1. Don’t forget!
The sum of the angles in any triangle add up to 180◦ . Pythago-
ras’ theorem says that if we label the lengths of the sides of a right
angled triangle like

c
b

a
then
c 2 = a2 + b 2 .
Also, remember the triangle rule for rearranging formulas. When we
have an equation of the form
B
A=
C
like for example
x
sin 30◦ =
2
then we remember that we can put the terms in a triangle,

A C

which might help us remember that if

B
A=
C
then
B
C=
A
and
B =A×C

1
2 TRIGONOMETRY SUMMARY NOTES AND WORKED EXAMPLES

So, if
x
sin 30◦ =
2
then from the triangle

sin 30◦ 2

we see that
x = 2 sin 30◦

2. Labelling the sides of a right-angled triangle

For a right angled triangle, the side opposite the right angle is always
the longest side and is called the hypotenuse.

hypotenuse

With respect to a chosen angle, say θ, we can then label the opposite
and adjacent.

hypotenuse
opposite

θ
adjacent

or

θ
hypotenuse
adjacent

opposite
 TRIGONOMETRY SUMMARY NOTES AND WORKED EXAMPLES 3

3. The trig ratios

With the sides of the right angled triangle labelled the trig ratios
can then be recalled using the mnemonic SOHCAHTOA.
opposite adjacent opposite
sin θ = cos θ = tan θ =
hypotenuse hypotenuse adjacent
Note that this means that,
sin θ
tan θ =
cos θ
since
opposite
sin θ hypotenuse opposite hypotenuse opposite
= adjacent
= × =
cos θ hypotenuse
hypotenuse adjacent adjacent

4. Finding the angles

The trig functions “eat” angles and “spit out” numbers. The inverse
trig functions, sin−1 , cos−1 and tan−1 work in the opposite direction
“undoing” sin, cos and tan respectively.

sin cos tan

, , ,
θk sin θ θk cos θ θk tan θ
sin−1 cos−1 tan−1

On your calculator you might have to use the button 2nd .

Example: Find the angle θ to 2 decimal places.

θ
5
3

Solution: Using the sine trig ratio we can write

4
sin θ =
5
so that θ is given by
( )
−1 4
θ = sin ≈ 53.13◦ .
5
4 TRIGONOMETRY SUMMARY NOTES AND WORKED EXAMPLES

5. Angle of elevation and angle of depression

The angle of elevation is measured up from the horizontal while
the angle of depression is measured down from the horizontal.

depression

elevation

Example: Two UFOs are detected by a receiver. The angle of ele-

vation from the receiver to each disc is 39.48◦ . The discs are hovering
at a direct distance of 826 m and 1.296 km from the receiver. Find the
difference in height between the two UFOs to the nearest metre.
Solution: It’s always a good idea to start by making a simple
sketch! In this case something like,

•
826in
e.
!

; h ,

39.48 ) !

Receiver

do
m I
1296
l
hz
,

•
: 39.480 ) !

Receiver

From which we see that the appropriate trig function to use is sin –
we know the angle, the hypotenuse and want the opposite side length.
Written out,

h1
sin (39.48◦ ) = =⇒ h1 = 826 × sin (39.48◦ ) ≈ 525.18 m
826
and
h2
sin (39.48◦ ) = =⇒ h2 = 1296 × sin (39.48◦ ) ≈ 824.01 m
1296
So the difference in height is h2 − h1 ≈ 299 m.
 TRIGONOMETRY SUMMARY NOTES AND WORKED EXAMPLES 5

6. Bearings
The true bearings of a location B from a location A are obtained
by measuring the angle clockwise from due north at A to the direction
AB as in
North

True bearings are usually written using three digits. For example if
A and B were located like this

North

B
60◦

then the true bearings of B from A are written as 060◦ T.

Example: A bushwalker hikes due north from a resting place for

1.5 km to a waterhole and then on a true bearing of 315◦ for 2 km to
base camp.
a Find how far west the base camp is from the waterhole, to the
nearest metre.
b Find how far north the base camp is from the waterhole, to the
nearest metre.
c Find how far north the base camp is from the initial resting
place, to the nearest metre.
Solution: It’s always a good idea to start by making a simple
sketch! In this case something like,
6 TRIGONOMETRY SUMMARY NOTES AND WORKED EXAMPLES

^
•
. Base camp
:

"
2km
My
"

N
"
^

:÷
.ae#I.Gw5ioewe
ill
c
i

•:•
'

5km
/
:'

Resting place

Then, for part (a) we want the the distance I’ve labelled a in the
sketch. We know the angle 45◦ in the triangle, the hypotenuse is 2 km
and we want the adjacent length a. So use cos,
a
cos 45◦ = =⇒ a = 2 × cos 45◦ ≈ 1.414 km.
2
The base camp is 1.414 km west of the waterhole. For part (b) we want
the distance I’ve labelled b which we can find using sin since that’s the
opposite side.
a
sin 45◦ = =⇒ a = 2 × sin 45◦ ≈ 1.414 km.
2
The base camp is 1.414 km north of the waterhole. Finally, for part
(c) we want the distance I’ve labelled c which is just the sum of 1.5 km
and the distance b. So the base camp is 2.914 km north of the initial
resting place.
7. The unit circle
The trigonometric functions are much more general than you might
think from their definitions in terms of ratios of side lengths of right
angled triangles. A more sophisticated way of defining these functions
is in terms of the unit circle. This is a circle, of radius 1 unit, with
centre at the origin, O, of an xy-coordinate grid. We then think of a
point P on this circle as being specified by the angle, θ, measured in
an anti-clockwise direction from the Ox axis to the line OP (the blue
angle in the diagram below). The cosine and sine functions are then
defined to be the functions of θ which specify the x and y coordinates
of the point P respectively. The x-coordinate is given by cos θ and
the y-coordinate by sin θ, so the coordinates of a general point P on
the circle are given by (cos θ, sin θ). When θ = 0, the point P has
coordinates (1, 0), in other words, cos 0◦ = 1 and sin 0◦ = 0. As the
 TRIGONOMETRY SUMMARY NOTES AND WORKED EXAMPLES 7

angle θ increases the coordinates of the point P change until at θ = 90◦

we find ourselves at the point (0, 1) so we see that cos 90◦ = 0 and
sin 90◦ = 1.

Quadrant II Quadrant I
1

sin(180 − θ)
= sin θ
P′ P (cos θ, sin θ)
180 − θ

θ x
−1 cos(180 − θ) O cos θ 1
= − cos θ

−1
Quadrant III Quadrant IV

The power of the unit circle definition is that we can see that sin
and cos of obtuse angles makes sense (and also negative angles when
we take them to be measured clockwise down from the Ox axis). In
particular, thinking about the point P ′ on the circle, which is the re-
flection of the point P in the Oy-axis, we see that the angle between
Ox and OP ′ is 180 − θ and therefore that

sin(180◦ − θ) = sin θ
cos(180◦ − θ) = − cos θ
8 TRIGONOMETRY SUMMARY NOTES AND WORKED EXAMPLES

8. Exact values
There are two special right-angled triangles which you should re-
member:

√ 45◦
2
1

45◦

This one tells us that

1 1
sin 45◦ = √ cos 45◦ = √ tan 45◦ = 1
2 2

60◦
2
1

30◦
√
3

This one tells us that

√
◦ 1 ◦ 3 1
sin 30 = cos 30 = tan 30◦ = √
2 2 3
√
3 1 √
sin 60◦ = cos 60◦ = tan 60◦ = 3
2 2

We can use these special triangles to calculate exact values for

missing side lengths if we have a triangle with the same angles (same
shape) but a different size.
 TRIGONOMETRY SUMMARY NOTES AND WORKED EXAMPLES 9

Example: Find the exact value of x:

20

30◦
x

Solution: Notice that this is a right-angled triangle with one angle 30◦
which means the other angle is 60◦ and so we’ve got a triangle of the
same shape as the second special triangle. To find x we need to figure
out how much bigger this triangle is compared to the special triangle
– what’s the scale factor? The hypotenuse of the special triangle has
length 2 while the hypotenuse of this triangle is 20 = 2 × 10 so this
triangle is 10 times as big. √The side adjacent to the 30◦ angle in the
special
√ triangle has length 3 so we know that the length x must be
10 × 3,
√
x = 10 3.

9. The sine rule

Up till this point all the triangles we’ve considered have been right-
angled but there are rules relating the the sin or cos of angles and side
lengths of general triangles. One of these is the sine rule. It applies to
any triangle but it’s important to label the sides and angles properly.

a
b

Note that the angles are denoted by the capital letters A, B and C and
the sides opposite those angles by a, b and c respectively. The sine
10 TRIGONOMETRY SUMMARY NOTES AND WORKED EXAMPLES

rule then says that

a b c
= =
sin A sin B sin C
If we know an angle and an opposite side length together with one
other side length then we can use the sine rule to calculate the angle
opposite that other side.

Example: Find angle A to 1 decimal place.

70◦
7

15

Solution: From the sine rule we can write

15 7
◦
=
sin 70 sin A
which we must first rearrange to obtain an expression for sin A. One
way of doing this is to multiply both sides by sin A to get
15 sin A
=7
sin 70◦
and then multiplying both sides by sin 70◦ to get
15 sin A = 7 sin 70◦
and finally dividing both sides by 15 to get
7 sin 70◦
sin A = .
15
We then see that the angle A is given by
( )
−1 7 sin 70◦
A = sin ≈ 26.0◦ .
15
If we know two (and therefore all angles, because the sum of all the
angles in a triangle is 180◦ ) and one side length then we can calculate
the side lengths of the other sides.
 TRIGONOMETRY SUMMARY NOTES AND WORKED EXAMPLES 11

Example: Find the length of side b to 1 decimal place.

100◦
b

50◦ 21

Solution: Notice that the angle opposite the side we want to find isn’t
given. But remember, the angles in a triangle always sum to 180◦ so
given the two angles we do know we know that the remaining angle
must be
180◦ − 100◦ − 50◦ = 30◦ .
Now we can write down the sine rule as
21 b
=
sin 100◦ sin 30◦
◦
so multiplying both sides by sin 30 we get
21 sin 30◦
b= ≈ 10.7.
sin 100◦
10. The cosine rule
For a triangle with side lengths and angles labelled as
C

a
b

A
the cosine rule says that
c2 = a2 + b2 − 2ab cos C
and
b2 = a2 + c2 − 2ac cos B
and
a2 = b2 + c2 − 2bc cos A
12 TRIGONOMETRY SUMMARY NOTES AND WORKED EXAMPLES

In words, the squared length of a side of a triangle is equal to the sum

of the squared lengths of the other two sides minus 2 times the product
of those side lengths and the cosine of the included angle.
If we know two side lengths of a triangle and the included angle then
the cosine rule can be used to calculate the length of the side opposite
that angle.

Example: Find the length of side c to 1 decimal place.

15
100◦
11

Solution: From the cosine rule we can write down

c2 = 112 + 152 − 2 × 11 × 15 × cos 100◦
plugging this into our calculators and taking the square root we get
c ≈ 20.1.
If we know all the side lengths of a triangle then we can use the
cosine rule to find any of the angles.

Example: Find the angle B to 1 decimal place.

4
6

Solution: From the cosine rule we can write

62 = 72 + 42 − 2 × 4 × 7 × cos B
so that
36 = 49 + 16 − 56 cos B
 TRIGONOMETRY SUMMARY NOTES AND WORKED EXAMPLES 13

so that rearranging we obtain

− 29 = −56 cos B
29
=⇒ cos B =
56( )
29
=⇒ B = cos−1
56
◦
=⇒ B ≈ 58.8

Example: Suppose a ship, initially at a point A, sails 100 km due east

to a point B and then on a bearing of 330◦ T for 200 km to a point
C. What is the straight line distance between A and C correct to the
nearest kilometer?
Solution: Make a sketch!

item
l•!⇒E
N
tt¥±•@
A
•

'
,

al
i÷
i.*n
i
- -

poo
-
- -
i

km
,

it
'

, N

330
.

From the sketch we see that we have a situation in which we can use
the cosine rule - we know two sides and the included angle so can find
the distance AC as follows.

AC 2 = 1002 + 2002 − 2 × 100 × 200 × cos 60◦

Plugging that into the calculator and taking the square root we find
AC ≈ 173 km.
14 TRIGONOMETRY SUMMARY NOTES AND WORKED EXAMPLES

11. The area formula

You’ll remember the formula for the area of a triangle as “half the
base times height”. So, for a triangle labelled as

b
h a

A B
c

the area would be 1

2
× c × h. But using our trig ratios we know for
example that

h
sin A =
b
=⇒ h = b sin A

so that the formula for the area, A, could be written as

1
A = cb sin A.
2

But we could also say that that

h
sin B =
a
=⇒ h = a sin B

so that the formula for the area, A, could be written as

1
A = ca sin B.
2

In general we can say that the area of any triangle is equal to half the
product of two sides and the sine of the included angle. So for any
 TRIGONOMETRY SUMMARY NOTES AND WORKED EXAMPLES 15

triangle labelled

a
b

the area A is given by

1
A = ac sin B
2
or
1
A = bc sin A
2
or
1
A = ab sin C
2

Example: Find the area of the following triangle.

3 km
32◦

2.1 km

Solution: Since we have two sides and the included angle we can
simply apply the formula
1
A= × 2.1 × 3 × sin 32◦
2
=⇒ A ≈ 3.3 km2
16 TRIGONOMETRY SUMMARY NOTES AND WORKED EXAMPLES

12. Practical trigonometry

⇐€EIIt;.¥⇒*¥¥
A simple way to compute the height of a building, as in the sketch
below, is to measure the
' horizontal distance d between you and the
building and then measure the angle θ in the right-angled triangle
sketched.

¥bE*
Hit
⇒* In
aI£i÷÷a
"
-

...

#
-

^ =

The angle is measured using a device called an inclinometer. Essen-

tially, this is a piece of tubing with a protractor attached to it and with
a string hanging from the centre of the protractor.

⇐€EIIt;.¥⇒*¥¥
'

Holding this to your eye and viewing the top of the building directly

¥bE*
Hit
⇒* In
aI£i÷÷a
measures the angle θ. The length b may then be calculated using the
fact that
d "
tan θ =-
b
so that -

... b=
d
.
tan θ

#
-

^ =
 TRIGONOMETRY SUMMARY NOTES AND WORKED EXAMPLES 17

Combining with your own height, the height of the building is then
given by
d
height = a + .
tan θ
It is not actually necessary to measure the distance to the wall. In-
stead, by making two angle measurements, θ1 and θ2 a known distance
d apart as in this sketch,

÷¥÷÷÷E÷e¥¥eEE¥
at : ^
t=
HI'

we obtain the angle α as the difference between the two measured

angles,
α = θ1 − θ2
the angle γ as
90◦ − θ1
and then β as
β = 180◦ − α − γ.
We then know all the angles in the smaller non-right-angled triangle as
well as a side so we can use the side rule to work out the hypotenuse c
of the big right-angled triangle,
c d
= .
sin β sin α
With the hypotenuse, c and the angle of elevation γ we can then cal-
culate b as
b = c sin γ.