WTH is Cot? *Maths question again*

[K.I.L.E.R]

Is it a*cos(x)?
I've never heard of it before. How would you do it on a calculator?

 

[Xenus]

1/ tan(x)

Its cotangent

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

A little more info please. Thanks.

So if it were sit(x) it would still be 1 / tan(x)?
Isn't 1 / tan(x) the inverse of tan?

1/ tan(x)

Its cotangent

 

[Xenus]

Whats sit(x)

Theres csc(x) which is 1/ Sin(x) and sec(x) which is 1/ cos(x). Yes it is the inverse of tan.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Whats sit(x)

Theres csc(x) which is 1/ Sin(x) and sec(x) which is 1/ cos(x). Yes it is the inverse of tan.

I see a pattern to it now.
Thanks.

I hope you guys don't mind answering maths questions a lot, I try to do my best but sometimes there are things that even confuse me.
Wait until I read up to the photon mapping part, I'm sure there will be a hell of a lot more questions I'd ask.

Unless of course the maths is all the stuff I covered before, which I hope it is because if it isn't I'm just going to finish my CS degree and then do a physics degree because this is just freaking ridiculous.

 

[OpenGL guy]

Whats sit(x)

Theres csc(x) which is 1/ Sin(x) and sec(x) which is 1/ cos(x). Yes it is the inverse of tan.

Not quite. cot(x) = 1/tan(x) which is the reciprocal of tan, not the inverse. The inverse of tan(x) is atan(x) (arctangent).

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Not quite. cot(x) = 1/tan(x) which is the reciprocal of tan, not the inverse. The inverse of tan(x) is atan(x) (arctangent).

Whoops. My bad.
Thanks.

 

[Xenus]

Not quite. cot(x) = 1/tan(x) which is the reciprocal of tan, not the inverse. The inverse of tan(x) is atan(x) (arctangent).

Argueing semantics are we? I gave him the correct formula so I got the terminology confused. It is not the end of the world unless this is one of the signs of the apocalypse they forgot to mention.

 

[CosmoKramer]

Argueing semantics are we?

It was absolutely not semantics. It is very important to separate the inverse of tan(x) from 1/tan(x).

 

[Xenus]

No I got the whole equatio right I just occasionaly confuse the terminology. The only time that matters is if the specifically ask for the the reciprical or the inverse if they ask for cot it does matter what I call it as long as I get it is 1/ tan(x)

 

[[maven]]

Kruno, I thought you were at university now? Anyway, I never quite thought introducing the reciprocals of sine / cosine / tangent as separate functions was a good idea, as they are not used *that* often and tend to confuse people when the inverse functions are introduced (thanks, Xenus ).

It is one of the differences between the (high-school) mathematics taught in US and German high-schools.

 

[LeGreg]

No I got the whole equatio right I just occasionaly confuse the terminology. The only time that matters is if the specifically ask for the the reciprical or the inverse if they ask for cot it does matter what I call it as long as I get it is 1/ tan(x)

that's quite funny because in France
"la fonction réciproque" of f is the function g defined on Im(f) so that g(f(x)) = x and f(g) = y whereas "la fonction inverse" of f is the function x -> 1/f(x)

talk about possibilities of miscommunication..

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

I have lost memory of a lot of things I've done in college.
A few days ago I had to go online to learn(re-learn) how to factorise.

 

[Snyder]

that's quite funny because in France
"la fonction réciproque" of f is the function g defined on Im(f) so that g(f(x)) = x and f(g) = y whereas "la fonction inverse" of f is the function x -> 1/f(x)

talk about possibilities of miscommunication..

Wow. It's a miracle none of the Arianes haven't blown up because of that.
Although...Did they ever disclose the truth about the A5 disaster?

 

[CosmoKramer]

No

What do you mean no[/no]? I don't think you know what semantics mean.

 

[Basic]

Although...Did they ever disclose the truth about the A5 disaster?

Yes, it was a security feature in Ada that caused it.
They had reused code from an earlier rocket. In that code there was some logging functions that wasn't necesary in A5, but it was still there idling along. (How could that harm the system?) Problem was that the input to the module had changed a bit, and after a while there was a variable that overflowed. (Hey, who cares, that software module wasn't realy used for anything.) But Ada has some nice built in checks, so it detected the overflow, and threw an exception. Nobody expected that exception, so nobody caught it. The Ada runtime system then says "Hey, I've got an exception that nobody caught. We're in big trouble, lets shut down the whole system."

Luckily they had a backup system.
It ran the exact same code.
Guess what happened one more time.

 

[Humus]

that's quite funny because in France
"la fonction réciproque" of f is the function g defined on Im(f) so that g(f(x)) = x and f(g) = y whereas "la fonction inverse" of f is the function x -> 1/f(x)

talk about possibilities of miscommunication..

In Swedish the word "invers" usually refers to 1/x as well, though sometimes it refers to reverse functions in a general sense. There's no Swedish counterpart of the english word "reciprocal" in the mathematical sense.