How do you find the six trigonometric functions of -3pi degrees?

1 Answer
Jun 18, 2018

cos(-3pi) = -1
sin(-3pi) = 0
tan(-3pi)=0
sec(-3pi) = -1
csc(-3pi) is undefined
cot(-3pi) is undefined

Explanation:

Since the whole 360° angle translates to 2pi radians, an angle of pi randians means half a turn around the circumference. So, -3pi means that you two three half turns clockwise.

Actually, you may notice that doing a half turn clockwise or counter clockwise has the same result: you will end up in the opposite point of where you started any way.

After two half turns we are where we started, so performing three half turn is the same as performing only one half turn, i.e. pi degree.

So, we cleared that -3pi radians intercepts the same point as pi radians.

Since we start from the point (1,0), after half turn we are at the point (-1,0). And since any point on the unit circle has coordinates (cos(alpha),sin(alpha)), we have

cos(-3pi) = cos(pi) = -1
sin(-3pi) = sin(pi) = 0

We can immediately deduce the remaining functions:

tan(-3pi)=tan(pi) = sin(pi)/cos(pi) = 0/(-1)=0

The other are simply the inverse of those we just wrote:

sec(-3pi) = sec(pi) = 1/cos(pi) = 1/-1 = -1
csc(-3pi) = csc(pi) = 1/sin(pi) = 1/0 \to undefined
cot(-3pi) = cot(pi) = 1/tan(pi) = 1/0 \to undefined