004 Trigonometry Part 2 Mre Advanced Trigonometry

4.
Advanced Trigonometry
General Triangles
Moving from the right-angled triangle to the general case, we find that sines and
cosines are still useful for finding unknown angles and sides.
For the general triangle, we label angles with capital letters, and the sides opposite
these with lower-case letters, angle A opposite side a and so on.
The Sine Rule
“The ratio between a side and the sine of the angle opposite is the same for all sides”.
In symbols,
The sine rule is useful for finding unknown angles and sides, as long as we already
know
 at least two angles, and one of the opposite sides, or
 at least two sides, and one of the opposite angles (but see below under “The
Ambiguous Case”).
Example 1. The sine rule achieved life-or-death significance when used to find the
positions of Allied radio operators in occupied territory in the Second World War. By
finding the angles between two detector vans (a known distance apart) and the source
of the signal, the Axis could use the rule to find the distance from both vans to the
source. They would then radio a pick-up squad with the appropriate map reference.
In the following triangle,

.
1
So, rewriting
to
gives
Similarly
The Ambiguous Case
If one angle and two sides are given, it’s possible for the sine rule to give two different
answers.
Example 2. Let side a=1.1m, c=2.6m and A=24°. Then
2
But in any triangle sin1(0.9614) could be either 74° or 106°. That is, there are two
angles that could work, and if we only know one angle, both may be true- as long as
either plus the known angle come to less than 180°. Here 24°+74°=98°<180° and
24°+106°=130°<180°, so the answer must give two triangles,
This is because calculators only give the answers for acute angles. If you are asked
top solve a triangle for which you have only two sides and one of the opposite angles,
then
If sin1 gives an answer 0°    90°, then 180° may also be possible. If an

answer plus the known angle comes to less than 180°, two triangles are possible.
Exercise 1.
1. What lengths are the unknown sides and angles in the following triangles?
a) a = 22m, A = 36, C = 43.
b) a = 38m, A = 47.8, C = 12.9.
c) a = 4.59m, A = 37°, c = 2.1m
d) a = 19, c = 38.5, C = 67.
e) a = 28, c = 28, C = 42.5
The Cosine Rule
“The square of any side is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides minus
twice the product of the other two sides with the cosine of the angle between them”.
Easier just to show the symbols;
But it could be remembered as “Pythagoras’ Theorem with a correction factor”.
The cosine rule is used whenever we know at least two sides and the angle between
them.
3
Example 3. Returning to the virtual railway network of part one. An update allows
users a budget of £1,000,000 to lay their own lines, at £10,000 per kilometre. Virtual
York is connected to Virtual Darlington by 75 km of track, and to Virtual Scarborough
by 56 km. A surveyor at York calculates an angle of 80 between the two. Can the user
afford to link Darlington and Scarborough directly?
By the cosine formula:
That’s u2, but we need u:

.
At £10,000/km this is £854,562 out of the budget.
Exercise 2.
What lengths are the unknown sides in the following triangles?
a) A = 79°, b = 27cm, c = 19.8cm

b) a = 15.73km, B = 121°, c = 23.15
c) a = 12.84, b = 6.58m, C = 28°.
Range-Finding
Range-finding is also called triangulation, so it’s naturally based on trigonometry.

Knowing the distance between two sighting-points, and the angle made between this
line and the object sighted, it’s possible to find the distance to the object.
4
First the distance a or b is found using the sine rule, e.g.
where C=180-A-B. If the distance c between the triangulation points is very small-
say, the distance between two eyes- and the object far away, this is a good enough
estimate to the distance d from the object to some known point along c.
If more accuracy is required, let e be the distance from B to the point required. then d
can be obtained from the cosine rule:
because d is now the side opposite B.
This is the principle behind binocular vision, and all types of military targeting.
Example 4.
An artillery piece O stands 230 m east of observation post A and 410m east of
observation post B. Both posts observe a stationary enemy tank. Post A reports and
angle of 70 between the tank and the gun, post B reports 80. What is the range to the
tank?
5
C is 180-70-80 = 30. Using the sine rule,
So side a is 1202.81.
Using the cosine rule,
giving d2. Therefore, d is

.
At the time the tank illustrated was used (a Panzerkampfwagon IV) sines and cosines
would have been found from tables and all arithmetic performed with pencil and
paper. Under fire.
Exercise 3.
1. What are the unknown distances in the following triangles?

6
a) a = 12, b = 23, C = 14.8
b) a = 33.6, c = 92.8, B = 28.4
Radians
We tend to use degrees for measuring angles. But degrees are an artificial measure of
arc. As mentioned in part 3, there’s no good reason there should be 360 rather than,
say, 100 or 1000 in a full circle. These numbers would be more convenient in a lot of
ways.
Mathematicians therefore use radians as a measure of arc. The length of a radian is

the length of the radius of the circle when laid on the circumference;
So one radian is just over 57.2958; there are 2 radians of arc in a complete circle,
about 6.283 radians. Radians don’t have a symbol, but mathematicians tend to count
them in multiples of , talking about 2/3, 0.36 and so on.
Mathematicians find radians useful because they behave well in calculus and
analysis- we can formulate laws using radians that don’t hold true for degrees. This
makes sense, because radians are “real” in a sense that degrees aren’t; every circle has
a radius, and every circle has a circumference 2 times this, so radians are “plumbed
in” to the very idea of a circle.
Everybody else hates radians, and the only reason I can think of is because you don’t
have a whole number of them to a complete circle. But, when angles are entered onto
a computer, much of the internal processing is valid only for radians, not degrees-
especially where rates of change in time are concerned. A programme that doesn’t
behave as expected when degrees are entered may behave perfectly well using
radians.
Every scientific calculator gives a choice of mode for trigonometry, so you can choose
to use either degrees or radians. Since 360= 2, 180=  radians, and the angles of a
triangle must add up to . Selecting the radians mode on a scientific calculator,
precisely the same calculations can be performed with radians as with degrees.
Example 5.
7
The angles in the following triangle are given in radians. What is the length of the
unknown sides?
Using the sine rule,
and
Exercise 4.
1. What are the unknown distances in the following triangles?

a) a = 11.2, b = 30.5, C = 0.2
b) a = 28.966, c = 63.871, B = 0.789

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4.

The Sine Rule

In the following triangle,

The Ambiguous Case

Example 2. Let side a=1.1m, c=2.6m and A=24°. Then

If sin1 gives an answer 0°    90°, then 180° may also be possible. If an

The Cosine Rule

But it could be remembered as “Pythagoras’ Theorem with a correction factor”.

By the cosine formula:

That’s u2, but we need u:

At £10,000/km this is £854,562 out of the budget.

What lengths are the unknown sides in the following triangles?

a) A = 79°, b = 27cm, c = 19.8cm

Range-finding is also called triangulation, so it’s naturally based on trigonometry.

because d is now the side opposite B.

Using the cosine rule,

giving d2. Therefore, d is

1. What are the unknown distances in the following triangles?

Mathematicians therefore use radians as a measure of arc. The length of a radian is

Using the sine rule,

1. What are the unknown distances in the following triangles?

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