Chapter 3

Triangles and Vectors

As was stated at the start of Chapter 1, trigonometry had its origins in the study of
triangles. In fact, the word trigonometry comes from the Greek words for triangle
measurement. We will see that we can use the trigonometric functions to help
determine lengths of sides of triangles or the measure on angles in triangles. As we
will see in the last two sections of this chapter, triangle trigonometry is also useful
in the study of vectors.

3.1 Trigonometric Functions of Angles

Focus Questions
The following questions are meant to guide our study of the material in this
section. After studying this section, we should understand the concepts mo-
tivated by these questions and be able to write precise, coherent answers to
these questions.

 How do we define the cosine and sine as functions of angles?

 How are the trigonometric functions defined on angles using circles of

any radius?

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