what does cosine mean?

Question

i'm no mathematician

Answer 1

It's a geometric function that you can use to find an angle of a triangle if you know how long the hypotenuse is (that's the side farthest from the 90 degree angle), and how long the side touching the angle is. Conversely, you can find either of those sides if you already know one of them and the angle. It's handy stuff for figuring out how tall or how far away something is.

Answer 2

It is a trigonometric function and the first time you see it in school usually is when you are dealing with right-angled triangles.

The cosine of an angle is the length of the side adjacent to the said angle divided by the length of the hypotenuse, the hypotenuse is the side of the triangle opposite the right angle.

Cosine is also a power series, but I guess if you don't know what cosine is then you probably don't know what a power series is either.

One step at a time.

Answer 3

Cosine is a number.
Each angle has its own value for cosine.
In ancient times scolars and scribes used to record these numbers in books (4 figure tables)
Now-a-days we all have scientific calculators which will recall the number for us.
Rather sadly pupils today think this means the calculator is working it out rather than looking it up.
You may feel that you are no mathematician but try it out its loads of fun...honest and I am no nerd!

Answer 4

Suppose you travel 1 mile on a road that slopes upward. The distance you travel on the map is slightly less than 1 mile because you also go up. Question: how does the horizontal distance depend on the angle of the slope?

Answer: cosine. The cosine of 10 degrees, for instance, is

cos 10 = 0.9848

which means that on a 10 degree slope you travel 0.9848 mile horizontally for every mile you move along the road.

(The related concept, sine, tells you how much you travel vertically; in this case, sin 10 = 0.1736, which means that every mile along the road gets you 0.1736 miles higher.)

Answer 5

Cosine is the ratio of the length of an adjacent side to the specified angle of a triangle over the length of the same triangles hypotenuse.

Answer 6

co·sine ( P )
n. Abbr. cos
In a right triangle, the ratio of the length of the side adjacent to an acute angle to the length of the hypotenuse.
The abscissa at the endpoint of an arc of a unit circle centered at the origin of a Cartesian coordinate system, the arc being of length x and measured counterclockwise from the point (1, 0) if x is positive or clockwise if x is negative

Answer 7

Cosine is angle on the coordinate circle and it does go through the origin thats how you can tell the difference between Sine and Cosine and it used in sound waves

Answer 8

It is a function of a variable which is typical and angle. If you have a triangle with one of the angles equal 90 degrees, the cosine of other angles is defined as a ratio between the adjacent side (catet) and the longest side (hypotenuse)

Answer 9

It is a trigonometric function. In a right triangle, the cosine of one of the angles is equal to the length of adjacent side divided by the length of the hypotenuse.

Remember SOHCAHTOA:
Sine = Opposite / Hypotenuse
Cosine = Adjacent / Hypotenuse
Tangent = Opposite / Adjacent

Answer 10

adjacent over hypotenuse. So, the cosine of an angle is the length of the adjactent side of the triangle goes is divided by (the adjacent side is the side next to the angle) the length of the hypotenuse (and the hypotenuse is the longest line in the triangle, or the slanted one)