What is the unit circle and why is it useful?
In: Mathematics
The formula for a circle is x^2 + y^2 = r^2 . With a little bit of effort, we can transform this into trigonometric functions: x^2 / r^2 + y^2 / r^2 = 1, then cosine^2 + sine^2 = 1. In a unit circle, the radius is 1 unit long, so we can drop it from the formulas, and cos and sin of the various angles just become their x and y co-ordinates.
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