Dave†™s Short Trig Course

Table of Contents
1. Who should take this course?
o Trigonometry for you
o Your background
o How to learn trigonometry
2. Applications of trigonometry
o Astronomy and geography
o Engineering and physics
o Mathematics and its applications
3. What is trigonometry?
o Trigonometry as computational geometry
o Angle measurement and tables

4. Background on geometry
o The Pythagorean theorem
o An explanation of the Pythagorean theorem
o Similar triangles
5. Angle measurement
o The concept of angle
o Radians and arc length
o Exercises, hints, and answers
o About digits of accuracy
6. Chords
o What is a chord?
o Trigonometry began with chords

7. Sines
o The relation between sines and chords
o The word “sine―
o Sines and right triangles
o The standard notation for a right triangle
o Exercises, hints, and answers

8. Cosines
o Definition of cosine
o Right triangles and cosines
o The Pythagorean identity for sines and cosines
o Sines and cosines for special common angles
o Exercises, hints, and answers

9. Tangents and slope

o The definition of the tangent
o Tangent in terms of sine and cosine
o Tangents and right triangles
o Slopes of lines
o Angles of elevation and depression
o Common angles again
o Exercises, hints, and answers
10. The trigonometry of right triangles
o Solving right triangles
o Inverse trig functions: arcsine, arccosine, and arctangent
o The other three trigonometric functions: cotangent, secant, and cosecant
o Exercises, hints, and answers
o Pythagorean triples

11. The trigonometric functions

and their inverses
o Arbitrary angles and
the unit circle
o Sines and cosines of arbitrary angles
o Properties of sines and cosines that follow from the definition
 o Graphs of sine and cosine functions
o Graphs of tangent and cotangent functions
o Graphs of secant and cosecant functions
12. Computing trigonometric functions
o Before computers: tables
o After computers: power series

13. The trigonometry of oblique triangles

o Solving oblique triangles
o The law of cosines
o The law of sines
o Exercises, hints, and answers

14. Demonstrations of the laws of sines and cosines

o For the law of sines
o For the law of cosines
15. Area of a triangle
o Area in terms of two sides and the included angle

16. Ptolemy’s sum and difference formulas

o Ptolemy’s theorem
o The sum formula for sines
o The other sum and difference formulas
17. Summary of trigonometric formulas
o Formulas for arcs and sectors of circles
o Formulas for right triangles
o Formulas for oblique triangles
o Formulas for areas of triangles
18. Summary of trigonometric identities
o More important identities
o Less important identities
o Truly obscure identities

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©1996, 1997, 2002, 2013

David E. Joyce

Department of Mathematics and Computer Science

Dave’s Short Trig Course is located Clark University
at http://www.clarku.edu/~djoyce/trig Worcester, MA 01610