| 14 | Trigonometric and Geometric Calculations |
In this chapter you will learn how to find the sine, cosine, and tangent of the sum of two angles. It doesn’t work like removing the parentheses in algebra. You’ll also learn how to find the trigonometric functions of the difference of two angles, and of angle multiples.
RATIOS FOR SUM ANGLES
Suppose angle A measures 30° and angle B measures 45°. With your calculator, you can find that sin 30° = 0.5000 and sin 45° = 0.7071, both to four significant figures. Adding the two gives you something bigger than 1.
It is apparent that sin A + sin B cannot be the same as sin (A + B) in this case. No sine (or cosine, for that matter) can be more than 1, because the ratio has the hypotenuse of a right triangle, ...
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