Pornrat Ruengrot
Posted on Friday, 07 February, 2003 - 01:55 pm:

Hi, I'm trying to find the relationship between cos-1 (x) and cosh-1 (x) but I got a contradiction. Can anyone point out mistakes? Here it goes...

From;

sin(ix) = isinh(x) , sinh(ix) = isin(x)
cos(ix) = cosh(x) , cosh(ix) = cos(x)

Let cosh-1 (x) = A
cosh(A) = x
cos(iA) = x
iA = cos-1 (x)
cos-1 (x) = icosh-1 (x) ......(*)

Let cos-1 (x) = A
cos(A) = x
cosh(iA) = x
iA = cosh-1 (x)
cosh-1 (x) = icos-1 (x) .....(**)

But when considering (*);
cos-1 (x) = icosh-1 (x)
(-i)cos-1 (x) = (-i)icosh-1 (x)
(-i)cos-1 (x) = cosh-1 (x)
cosh-1 (x) = (-i)cos-1 (x) ......(***)

Comparing with (**);
cosh-1 (x) = icos-1 (x)
icos-1 (x) = (-i)cos-1 (x)

How can it be?!?!?
Alex Fletcher
Posted on Friday, 07 February, 2003 - 03:04 pm:

hint: does cos(a)=cos(b) imply a=b?
Dan Goodman
Posted on Friday, 07 February, 2003 - 03:06 pm:

Do you know that cosh(-x)=cosh(x)? If so, this should explain what is going on here. You are treating cosh-1 as if it had only one value, but it actually has more than that. Whenever y is a value of cosh-1, -y is also a value. Incidentally, can you show that whenever y is a value of cosh-1, y+2npi, where n is an integer, is also a value?
Pornrat Ruengrot
Posted on Friday, 07 February, 2003 - 05:32 pm:

Oh...I forgot completely that cosh(-x) = cosh(x)
If A = cosh(x) then cosh-1 (A) = ±x

Thank you, Alex and Dan, I got it now.