Introduction To Trigonometry

Trigonometry is the study of the relationship between the sides and angles of triangles, and the ratios between the lengths of the sides.

A Triangle has three sides – and depending on the angle you are working with, they are labelled differently.

The longest side is called the Hypotenuse - another way of finding this side is looking at the right angle and taking the side directly opposite it.

The side that is next to the angle but that is not the hypotenuse is called the adjacent.

The side that is on the other side of the triangle is called the opposite – simple, right?

Pythagoras’ Theorem:

-The sum of the squares of the adjacent and opposite in a right-angled triangle are equal to the square of the length of the hypotenuse of the triangle.

The formula is: a² + b² = c² where a and b are the adjacent and opposite sides in the triangle (interchangeable)

We can use this to find the length of an unknown side in the triangle, given that we have the length of two sides.