Hi all,
I'm trying to teach myself trig and have done fine until this question under "Solve Sinusoidal Equations." I looked at the hints and don't get it at all. How and why did they introduce pi/3 in step 2 of the solution? Where did that come from?
I got it all the way to inverse cos 0.5= on one side, but where that next step came from introducing pi/3, I have no idea. Thanks!
(Hopefully I understand what you are referring to; you are not getting the same value on both sides of the equation?)
If so, it seems you possibly got the left side in degrees, and the right side in radians.
This happens when one uses degrees mode on the calculator.
In degrees mode:
cos^-1(0.5) will show up as 60 (degrees)
pi/3 will show up as 1.047... (radians)
... hence being a bit confusing, especially when the symbol (° or rad) does not show.
Make sure to change your calculator mode to radians and then you will see that both sides are equal. (There is usually a MODE menu to change this)
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