MySTEMNotes

MySTEMNotes: college level STEM notes

  • How to Navigate the Trigonometry Section

    For now, the only material on this website is trigonometry related. As time goes on, this website will grow, and the categories will be updated to reflect the different subjects that are added. The content is going to be separated into 5 different units of approximately 10 different sections. Each unit will build upon the…

  • 5.3 Sum and Difference Identities for Cosine

    The sum and difference identities are identities that express sine, cosine, and tangent of the sum or difference of two angles in terms of the sine, cosine, and tangent of the individual angles. Let’s denote the two angles as alpha (α) and beta (β). Be sure to note that: Cofunction Identities Examples 1. Recall where…

  • 5.2 Verifying Trigonometric Identities

    Verifying trigonometric identities is demonstrating that one side of an equation is equal to the other side of the equation. There are seven steps to this process. These are not necessarily black and white rules. These are the steps that were taught to me, and they are as follows. Examples 1. a) b) c) d)…

  • 5.1 Trigonometry Fundamental Identities

    Trigonometric fundamental identities are really fun stuff. We can use them to rewrite equations and make them simpler for us to solve, and I will illustrate this further along in this post. Let’s get into the Pythagorean identities first. Pythagorean Identities Now that we have our three Pythagorean identities written out, let’s also make note…

  • 4.4 How to Graph Secant and Cosecant Functions

    Now that we have covered how to graph sine and cosine, and how to graph tangent and cotangent, it’s time to learn how to graph the secant and cosecant functions. In order to do this, you HAVE to know how to graph sine and cosine. If you do not comfortably know how to do this,…

  • 4.3 How to Graph the Tangent and Cotangent Functions

    Now that we know how to graph the sine and cosine functions, we can learn how to graph the tangent and cotangent. In this post, I will go over the basic graphs for the tangent and cotangent and the ways that we can manipulate them. How to Graph the Tangent Function Let’s take a look…

  • 4.2 How to Graph Sine and Cosine Functions with Horizontal and Vertical Shifts

    In my last post, I dove into the graphs of sine and cosine and the basic ways that we can manipulate them. If you are unfamiliar with the basic graphs of sine and cosine, I highly recommend going back through my last post before diving into this one. In this post, we are going to…

  • 4.1 Graphs of Sine and Cosine Functions

    In this post, we are going to get into graphing the functions of sine and cosine. While this may seem daunting at first, it’s actually quite simple one you understand what the base graphs of these functions look like. The graphs of sine and cosine are periodic functions, which means that repeat over a certain…

  • Python Methods

    print() – prints whatever is inside the parentheses. .title() – changes each word to title case. .upper() – changes string to all uppercase. .lower() – changes string to all lowercase. \t – adds tab to text. \n – adds a new line to text. .rstrip() – removes white space to right of string. .lstrip() –…

  • 3.4 Linear and Angular Speed

    Linear speed and angular speed are both used to measure the motion of objects, but they refer to different types of motion. Linear speed refers to the speed that an object moves in a straight path along a trajectory. For example, linear speed could refer to a car driving along a straight road. Angular speed…

  • 3.3 The Unit Circle and Circular Functions

    Meet your best friend – the unit circle! The unit circle is an integral part to helping you succeed in trigonometry. Memorize every part of it (it’s not as overwhelming as it would appear at first glance), and use it to your advantage. During my college trigonometry class, I drew the unit circle on the…