I need help with Trigonometry!

Well, I'm using trigonometric ratios to find the angles of a right triangle. Well I got everything down there is just one thing that I don't understand. What does Sin -1(It should be a small -1 like in squared) mean?

Originally Posted by Kishiru

Well, I'm using trigonometric ratios to find the angles of a right triangle. Well I got everything down there is just one thing that I don't understand. What does Sin -1(It should be a small -1 like in squared) mean?

Sin-1 is jut the negitive inverse of Sin. In your case, you would use it when you have the 90 degree angle and 2-3 side mesurents and you are trying to find one of the missing angles.

Sin -1 is arcsin. It means "the angle whose sine value is."

So arcsin(sin(90)) is 90, for example.

Captain Crusader and Koulatio are correct: sin-1 is inverse sine and can also be labelled arcsin. It is defined such that arcsin(sin(x)) = x = sin(arcsin(x)).

For instance, we know that sin(pi/2) = 1; we can turn this around, and say pi/2 = arcsin(1).