Summary of trigonometric identities

Youhaveseenquiteafewtrigonometricidentitiesinthepastfewpages.Itisconvenienttohaveasummaryof
themforreference.Theseidentitiesmostlyrefertooneangledenoted,buttherearesomethatinvolvetwo
angles,andforthose,thetwoanglesaredenotedand.

The more important identities.

Youdonthavetoknowalltheidentitiesoffthetopofyourhead.Buttheseyoushould.

Definingrelationsfortangent,
cotangent,secant,andcosecantinterms
ofsineandcosine.

ThePythagoreanformulaforsines
andcosines.Thisisprobablythemost
importanttrigidentity.

Identitiesexpressingtrigfunctionsin
termsoftheircomplements.There's
notmuchtothese.Eachofthesixtrig
functionsisequaltoitscofunction
evaluatedatthecomplementaryangle.

Periodicityoftrigfunctions.Sine,
cosine,secant,andcosecanthave
period2whiletangentandcotangent
haveperiod.

Identitiesfornegativeangles.Sine,
tangent,cotangent,andcosecantare
oddfunctionswhilecosineandsecant
areevenfunctions.
 Ptolemysidentities,thesumand
differenceformulasforsineand
cosine.

Doubleangleformulasforsineand
cosine.Notethattherearethreeforms
forthedoubleangleformulaforcosine.
Youonlyneedtoknowone,butbeable
toderivetheothertwofromthe
Pythagoreanformula.

The less important identities.

Youshouldknowthattherearetheseidentities,buttheyarenotasimportantasthosementionedabove.They
canallbederivedfromthoseabove,butsometimesittakesabitofworktodoso.

ThePythagoreanformulafor
tangentsandsecants.Theresalsoone
forcotangentsandcosecants,butas
cotangentsandcosecantsarerarely
needed,itsunnecessary.

Identitiesexpressingtrigfunctionsin
termsoftheirsupplements.

Sum,difference,anddoubleangle
formulasfortangent.

Thehalfangleformulas.Theonesfor
sineandcosinetakethepositiveor
negativesquarerootdependingonthe
 quadrantoftheangle/2.Forexample,
if/2isanacuteangle,thenthe
positiverootwouldbeused.

Truly obscure identities.

Thesearejusthereforperversity.No,notreally.Theyhavesomeapplications,buttheyreusuallynarrow
applications,andtheycouldjustaswellbeforgottenuntilneeded.

Productsumidentities.Thisgroupof
identitiesallowyoutochangeasumor
differenceofsinesorcosinesintoa
productofsinesandcosines.

Productidentities.Aside:weirdly
enough,theseproductidentitieswere
usedbeforelogarithmswereinvented
inordertoperformmultiplication.
Hereshowyoucouldusethesecond
one.Ifyouwanttomultiplyxtimesy,
useatabletolookuptheanglewhose
cosineisxandtheanglewhose
cosineisy.Lookupthecosinesofthe
sum+.andthedifference.
Averagethosetwocosines.Yougetthe
productxy!Threetablelookups,and
computingasum,adifference,andan
averageratherthanonemultiplication.
TychoBrahe(15461601),among
others,usedthisalgorithmknownas
prosthaphaeresis.
 Tripleangleformulas.Youcaneasily
reconstructthesefromtheadditionand
doubleangleformulas.

Morehalfangleformulas.These
describethebasictrigfunctionsin
termsofthetangentofhalftheangle.
Theseareusedincalculusfora
particularkindofsubstitutionin
integralssometimescalledthe
Weierstrasstsubstitution.

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1996,1997.
DavidE.Joyce

DepartmentofMathematicsandComputerScience
DavesShortTrigCourseislocated ClarkUniversity
athttp://www.clarku.edu/~djoyce/trig Worcester,MA01610