Understanding the Pythagorean Theorem's Ratios

[Miike012]

Homework Statement

How does the pythagorean therm. give us sin cos tan and their recipr.? I don't understand how a^2 + b^2 = c^2 give you those ratios?

Homework Equations

The Attempt at a Solution

 

[armolinasf]

The pythagorean theorem will give you the pythagorean identities if you let a=opposite side b=adjacent side, c= hypotenuse. You can derive all the pythagorean identities by dividing by the different sides.

You may want to skim over this http://mathsfirst.massey.ac.nz/Trig/TrigRatio.htm or even better take a look at the khan academy library of videos on trig.

 

[Miike012]

Thank you.