A diagram of the unit circle showing the geometric meaning of sin, cos and tan.

Notices where this attachment appears

1. Embed this notice
   myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Saturday, 23-Nov-2024 11:11:25 JST myrmepropagandist

   in reply to

   @dendari @phaedral @Infrapink @jacquiharper

   The crazy thing is... in a way it *is* the same tangent, or at least for a circle.

   Most people know that you can plot a circle using:

   x=cos theta
   y=sin theta

   And let theta go from 0 to 2pi (or 0 to 360 if you like)

   Because the x and y co-ordinates of a circle are parametrized by the sin and cos.

   Tangent has a geometric meaning here too. And this is why it increases without bound as theta gets close to pi/4 (90 degrees)