Michdd Posted September 20, 2009 Share Posted September 20, 2009 I'm starting to pull my hair out.. This seems like a really simple problem but I haven't worked with trig in a while, now I feel really lost.. I have a line that can be on any angle. I will have the angle of that line, and the width of it. What I want to get is the height from the line at 0Degrees, to the tip of where it is now. So essentially we have a triangle; hypotenuse is 40, angle a is X and we need to find side a.. I thought I'd do 40 * sin(X), but that obviously isn't right.. Because say X is 4, then I get like -30.. and side can't be negative. Totally confused :S Edit: here's a picture to help get my point across.. Given the value of X (Angle A), I need to find the length of side a. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corbin Posted September 20, 2009 Share Posted September 20, 2009 40sin(4) = -30 But: 40sin(4 degrees) = 2.8 Typically radians are the default unit in trig. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michdd Posted September 20, 2009 Author Share Posted September 20, 2009 Wow, maybe I shouldn't be trying to do math at 3am. I swear I tried that x.x. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corbin Posted September 22, 2009 Share Posted September 22, 2009 If it makes you feel any better, tests in trig last year would often switch between the two units, and half of the time I wouldn't notice.... It went kind of badly sometimes haha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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