Chapter 2
Cooperating with Cartesian Coordinates
IN THIS CHAPTER
Marking points on a graph
Finding the distance between two points
Locating midpoints
Defining the slope of a line
Determining equations of circles
A picture is worth a thousand words. Drawing pictures or graphs of functions and equations in math helps you understand what’s going on with them. In trigonometry, you often draw angles and triangles, in addition to the curves that represent the trig functions (sine, cosine, tangent, cotangent, secant, and cosecant). The standard Cartesian coordinate system, which you use when drawing graphs in algebra and other math topics, works best here. If you’re looking for a refresher on this point-plotting system, you will find it in this chapter. In short, with the Cartesian coordinate system, everything reads from left to right and from bottom to top, running through the negative to the positive numbers.
Starting Out Simple: Plotting Points
Plotting points on a mathematical graph ...
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