Show that the sine or cosine value of an angle measuring 48° is equivalent to the sine or cosine value of that same angle measured in radians and state the value of the function.

1 answer

To show that the sine or cosine value of an angle measuring \( 48^\circ \) is equivalent to the sine or cosine value of that same angle measured in radians, we first need to convert \( 48^\circ \) to radians.

The conversion from degrees to radians is given by the formula:

\[ \text{radians} = \text{degrees} \times \frac{\pi}{180} \]

For \( 48^\circ \):

\[ 48^\circ = 48 \times \frac{\pi}{180} = \frac{48\pi}{180} = \frac{48\pi}{180} = \frac{8\pi}{30} = \frac{4\pi}{15} \]

Now we have:

  • \( 48^\circ \) in degrees is equivalent to \( \frac{4\pi}{15} \) in radians.

Next, we can express the sine and cosine values:

  1. Sine: \[ \sin(48^\circ) = \sin\left(\frac{4\pi}{15}\right) \]

  2. Cosine: \[ \cos(48^\circ) = \cos\left(\frac{4\pi}{15}\right) \]

At this stage, we do not have to calculate the numerical values of these sine and cosine functions. Both expressions \( \sin(48^\circ) \) and \( \sin\left(\frac{4\pi}{15}\right) \) represent the same value, and likewise for the cosine.

To provide the numerical value for either function, we can calculate:

  • Using a calculator:

    • \( \sin(48^\circ) \approx 0.7431 \)
    • \( \cos(48^\circ) \approx 0.6691 \)
  • Or, with radians:

    • \( \sin\left(\frac{4\pi}{15}\right) \approx 0.7431 \)
    • \( \cos\left(\frac{4\pi}{15}\right) \approx 0.6691 \)

In conclusion, we have shown that:

\[ \sin(48^\circ) = \sin\left(\frac{4\pi}{15}\right) \] and \[ \cos(48^\circ) = \cos\left(\frac{4\pi}{15}\right) \]

Both values are approximately:

\[ \sin(48^\circ) \approx 0.7431 \] \[ \cos(48^\circ) \approx 0.6691 \]