Mammoth Memory

The sine curve and cosine curve

 

You really don’t need to know this but again it could provide background help to some.

Following on from using a 1m stick to find the relationship between adjacent and cosine and the opposite and sine, the mathematicians took this 1m long hypotenuse triangle and continued to move the hypotenuse around in a circle, still taking measurements of the opposite lengths (sine) and the adjacent (cosine).

Pictorially this is what happened.

Moving the hypotenuse around a circle but still taking opposite and adjacent measurements 

The red triangles just show the position of the 1 metre stick at 45°, 135°, 225° and 315°.

Sectioned pictorial of cosine and sine showing the 1m stick

 

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