Comments on: Easy Trig Identities With Euler’s Formula https://betterexplained.com/articles/easy-trig-identities-with-eulers-formula/ Math lessons that click Sat, 13 Aug 2022 16:54:19 +0000 hourly 1 By: Apurva Singh https://betterexplained.com/articles/easy-trig-identities-with-eulers-formula/#comment-359664 Fri, 14 Dec 2018 20:47:00 +0000 http://betterexplained.com/?p=5373#comment-359664 v cool blog.. smart way of thinking

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By: kalid https://betterexplained.com/articles/easy-trig-identities-with-eulers-formula/#comment-339255 Tue, 01 May 2018 16:44:00 +0000 http://betterexplained.com/?p=5373#comment-339255 In reply to Reilly Beckstrand.

Great question. I don’t have a visual diagram or intuition for tan(a+b) yet, but I think using the dome-wall-ceiling diagram you might be able to construct it (I’d have to play around a bit). Great idea for a follow-up though.

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By: Reilly Beckstrand https://betterexplained.com/articles/easy-trig-identities-with-eulers-formula/#comment-339136 Mon, 30 Apr 2018 22:02:00 +0000 http://betterexplained.com/?p=5373#comment-339136 Hey Kalid! I loved the way you used two right triangles to show what was happening. After I realized that sin(a or b) and cos(a or b) could be the side of a triangle it clicked. (for sin(a+b)=sin(a)cos(b)……. that sin(a) is just the vertical distance we “drag” back down the hypotenuse till it meets cos(b). Aha!) I was trying to do the same thing for tan(a+b) and was having a hard time picturing the triangles interacting. Do you know of a good way to visualize that relationship? I know I could just substitute in sin(a+b)/cos(a+b), but that lacks the intuition I’m going for.

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By: Laura https://betterexplained.com/articles/easy-trig-identities-with-eulers-formula/#comment-336416 Wed, 31 Jan 2018 06:06:58 +0000 http://betterexplained.com/?p=5373#comment-336416 I love the diagram in the section Understanding The Equation. The addition formula for sin (a + b) makes sense looking at the diagram.

The hypotenuse of the blue triangle is one. That makes any point along it measurable as a percentage value. As Kalid has said before, cos and sin are just percentages.
So we can imagine the length of the base of the red triangle of distance cos (b) as a percentage value.

Now the hypotenuse of the triangle with angle (a) can also be considered a way of measuring points along the vertical distance, sin (a). If you, for example, draw a horizontal line connecting the mid way point of the hypotenuse across to the vertical line sin (a), that gives you the distance 50% of sin (a). If you connect a line between the point of distance cos (b) and the vertical line sin (a), that gives you cos (b) of sin(a), or cos(b)sin(a). So we see that the distance sin(a) reduces to cos (b) sin (a) according to this calculation when brought ‘in’ to match up with that point along the hypotenuse.

Now we can do the same trick with calculating the next term in the equation, which as we know will turn out to be cos (a) sin (b).

We know that the red triangle has been tilted up by an angle of (a). That means as Kalid says that we can no longer use the full value of sin (b).

Instead we can mentally construct a new triangle on its side, at ninety degrees from the horizontal, which is attached to the right side of the red triangle. Since it is attached to the red triangle which is askew from the horizontal by angle (a), it is askew from the vertical by that same angle. The hypotenuse of that triangle adjoins the right side of the red triangle. If we were to draw this third triangle in full, the hypotenuse would extend to a distance one and the length of its ‘base’ or vertical distance would be cos (a).

Hence bringing this length ‘in’ to connect with the distance ‘sin (b)’ provides the value cos (a) sin (b).

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