Can someone tell my what cos, sin and tan actually measure?

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Can someone tell my what cos, sin and tan actually measure?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Imagine you are standing in certain place on large flat field. Lets say you are facing north. If you turn by 0 degrees and walk 1 km straight, you will end 1 km to the north.

If you instead turn 90 degrees to the right and walk 1km straight, you will end 1 km to the east and 0km to the north.

If you instead turn 45 degrees and walk straight 1km, you will be 0.7km to the north and 0.7km to the east.

What if you turn for 72 degrees and walk straight for 1 km? Where you will end? SIN and COS just answers to that.

You will be sin(72) km in the north and cos(72) km to the east.

North: sin(72) x 1km = 0.309 x 1km = 0.309 km
East: cos(72) x 1km = 0.951 x 1km = 0.951 km

So turning right 72 degrees and walking 1km straight, you will end up 309 meters to the north and 951 meters to the east from your starting point.

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