September 11, 2009
No CommentsHow to Use SOHCAHTOA
Description
A detailed tutorial on the solving of SOHCAHTOA. Step by step tutorial including several examples of how to solve SOHCAHTOA problems for reference.
Overview
SOHCAHTOA, often spaced out to spell SOH-CAH-TOA, stands for Sine = Opposite/Hypontenuse, Cosine = Adjacent/Hypotenuse, Tangent = Opposite/Adjacent. You use it with an angle to help solve for the sine, cosine, or tangent of that angle. What Opposite, Adjacent, and Hyptonuse stand for are the sides of a triangle – the side exactly opposite your angle, the hypotenuse, and the third non-hypotenuse side that is next to your angle. Because of this, SOHCAHTOA can only be used with a right triangle. The values for opposite, adjacent, and hypotenuse are the length of the side of the triangle it stands for. It is not necessary to know the measure of the angle before using SOHCAHTOA.
