order of operations when using sin()?

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trying to solve this example: 10·sin(50)/sin(110)

and wolfram says its 8.15. if i enter it the same way into google calculator, it says its 59.

and my own calculator says 7.15. it also says sin of 50 is 0.7, then google says sin of 50 is -0.2.

so i have no clue. how do i even solve this?

In: Mathematics

4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

There’s 2 major types of sin() (and cos and tan) functions: those that takes degrees as inputs, and those that take radians as inputs. You’ve got a mixture here which is messing you up. sin(50 degrees) is about 0.7, sin(50 radians) is about -0.2.

Radians measure the distance around a circle not in degrees, but as a measurement of the curve around the circle you travel around a circle with a radius 1. Hence 360 degrees is `2 * pi` radians, since the circumference of a circle is `2 * pi * r` and the radius is 1.

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