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There are 35 NRICH Mathematical resources connected to Sine, cosine, tangent, you may find related items under Pythagoras and trigonometry.
Broad Topics > Pythagoras and trigonometry > Sine, cosine, tangentThe sine of an angle is equal to the cosine of its complement. Can you explain why and does this rule extend beyond angles of 90 degrees?
A dot starts at the point (1,0) and turns anticlockwise. Can you estimate the height of the dot after it has turned through 45 degrees? Can you calculate its height?
On a nine-point pegboard a band is stretched over 4 pegs in a "figure of 8" arrangement. How many different "figure of 8" arrangements can be made ?
An observer is on top of a lighthouse. How far from the foot of the lighthouse is the horizon that the observer can see?
The area of a square inscribed in a circle with a unit radius is, satisfyingly, 2. What is the area of a regular hexagon inscribed in a circle with a unit radius?
This problem in geometry has been solved in no less than EIGHT ways by a pair of students. How would you solve it? How many of their solutions can you follow? How are they the same or different? Which do you like best?
In this problem we are faced with an apparently easy area problem, but it has gone horribly wrong! What happened?
Three points A, B and C lie in this order on a line, and P is any point in the plane. Use the Cosine Rule to prove the following statement.
How would you design the tiering of seats in a stadium so that all spectators have a good view?
How can you represent the curvature of a cylinder on a flat piece of paper?
The third of three articles on the History of Trigonometry.
The second of three articles on the History of Trigonometry.
The first of three articles on the History of Trigonometry. This takes us from the Egyptians to early work on trigonometry in China.
Can you explain what is happening and account for the values being displayed?
Two perpendicular lines lie across each other and the end points are joined to form a quadrilateral. Eight ratios are defined, three are given but five need to be found.
The Earth is further from the Sun than Venus, but how much further? Twice as far? Ten times?
How far should the roof overhang to shade windows from the mid-day sun?
You can use a clinometer to measure the height of tall things that you can't possibly reach to the top of, Make a clinometer and use it to help you estimate the heights of tall objects.
Logo helps us to understand gradients of lines and why Muggles Magic is not magic but mathematics. See the problem Muggles magic.
What angle is needed for a ball to do a circuit of the billiard table and then pass through its original position?
The length AM can be calculated using trigonometry in two different ways. Create this pair of equivalent calculations for different peg boards, notice a general result, and account for it.
A moveable screen slides along a mirrored corridor towards a centrally placed light source. A ray of light from that source is directed towards a wall of the corridor, which it strikes at 45 degrees before being reflected across to the opposite wall and so on until it hits the screen.
Describe how to construct three circles which have areas in the ratio 1:2:3.
It is obvious that we can fit four circles of diameter 1 unit in a square of side 2 without overlapping. What is the smallest square into which we can fit 3 circles of diameter 1 unit?
Three squares are drawn on the sides of a triangle ABC. Their areas are respectively 18 000, 20 000 and 26 000 square centimetres. If the outer vertices of the squares are joined, three more triangular areas are enclosed. What is the area of this convex hexagon?
The sides of a triangle are 25, 39 and 40 units of length. Find the diameter of the circumscribed circle.
Follow instructions to fold sheets of A4 paper into pentagons and assemble them to form a dodecahedron. Calculate the error in the angle of the not perfectly regular pentagons you make.
From the measurements and the clue given find the area of the square that is not covered by the triangle and the circle.
Follow the instructions and you can take a rectangle, cut it into 4 pieces, discard two small triangles, put together the remaining two pieces and end up with a rectangle the same size. Try it!
Prove that the shaded area of the semicircle is equal to the area of the inner circle.
Straight lines are drawn from each corner of a square to the mid points of the opposite sides. Express the area of the octagon that is formed at the centre as a fraction of the area of the square.
Six circular discs are packed in different-shaped boxes so that the discs touch their neighbours and the sides of the box. Can you put the boxes in order according to the areas of their bases?
The area of a regular pentagon looks about twice as a big as the pentangle star drawn within it. Is it?
The coke machine in college takes 50 pence pieces. It also takes a certain foreign coin of traditional design...