Dave's Short Trig Course


java applet or image

Table of Contents

  1. Who should take this course?

  2. Applications of trigonometry

  3. What is trigonometry?

  4. Angle measurement

  5. Chords

  6. Sines

  7. Cosines

  8. Tangents and slope

  9. The trigonometry of right triangles

  10. The trigonometric functions and their inverses

  11. The trigonometry of oblique triangles

  12. Summary of trigonometric identities

Note: If your browser is Java-enabled, you can drag the points around in the diagrams and the diagram will adjust itself. The free points, colored red, can be freely dragged about, and as they move, the rest of the diagram (except the other free points) will adjust appropriately. Sliding points, colored orange, can be dragged about like the free points, except their motion is limited to either a straight line or a circle, depending on the point. If you drag the pivot point, colored green, the entire diagram will be translated along with it. Other points can be dragged, too, if there is a pivot point showing, and the diagram will be rotated and dilated around the pivot point. Also, if you type r or the space key while the cursor is over the diagram, then the diagram will be reset to its original configuration. If you type u or return the figure will be lifted off the page into a separate window. Typing d or return while the cursor is over the window will return the diagram to the page. Note that you can resize the floating window to make the diagram larger.

Special symbols used here. Some old web browsers do not display mathematical symbols. The following table shows the mathematical symbols used here. If there are any entries in the first column that appear blank or appear as question marks, then your web browser will not display those symbols, and you will need to use a different web browser to see all the symbols.

SymbolDescriptionExample
minus signx – y
±plus or minus signx ± y
°degree sign45°
square root sign√2
3cube root sign3√5
not equal tox ≠ y
less than or equal tox ≤ y
greater than or equal tox ≥ y

Started July, 1996. Copyright © 1996, 1997.

David E. Joyce
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Clark University Worcester, MA 01610

Email: djoyce@clarku.edu

Dave's Short Trig Course is located at http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/java/trig