another trig question?

Question

for cot (-102.51) in degrees comes out to be cot (-102.85) how do you come up with answer .2281?

Answer 1

ok if you have angle in degrees with negative sign you have to find its coterminal anlge with positive sign and that's by adding 360 till you get positive result
-102.51 + 360 = 257.49
you need now to get cot (257.49)
unfortunatley calculators dont contain cot just
sin , cos , tan
but you know that cotan is reciprocal of tan
so use calculator to get tan 257.49
tan 257.49 = 4.5069
if you have really modern calculator you will find key named
x-1 ( -1 is up ) it gets the reciprocal of any number
if not just type 1 / answer ( 4.5069 ) then you get 0.2218
for angle 105.85 i think you just mistyped it
but also add 360 you get 257.15
tan 257.15 = 4.3838 1 / answer
cot 257.15 = 0.228
hope that helps

Answer 2

using trig identities work...but also...cot x = the inverse of tan x....therefore cot x = 1/ tan x...therefore type in your calculator... 1/tan(-102.51) and you will get your answer......also, make sure that your calculator is in the right mode...if it is in radians, and not degrees, you were being mislead.

Answer 3

To type it into your calculator you need to use the trig identities. So cot x = (cos x \ sin x)

So in your calculator you would put cos (-102.51) \ sin(-102.51)

Try that =]

Answer 4

That is pretty hard to calculate. Before calculators there was a table for trig functions. Unless I have a table or a calculator I wouldn't be able to calculate it.