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Spherical Trigonometry Law of Cosines Trigonometry

This document discusses spherical trigonometry and the law of cosines for spherical triangles. It provides formulas for calculating angles and sides of spherical triangles based on relationships between cosine functions of the angles and sides. In particular, the spherical law of cosines relates the cosine of one angle of a spherical triangle to the lengths of the other two sides and their included angle.

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Faisal Saleem
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69 views

Spherical Trigonometry Law of Cosines Trigonometry

This document discusses spherical trigonometry and the law of cosines for spherical triangles. It provides formulas for calculating angles and sides of spherical triangles based on relationships between cosine functions of the angles and sides. In particular, the spherical law of cosines relates the cosine of one angle of a spherical triangle to the lengths of the other two sides and their included angle.

Uploaded by

Faisal Saleem
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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tan X = ctn (t/2) * cos ((L1-L2)/2) / sin ((L1+L2)/2)

tan Y = ctn (t/2) * sin ((L1-L2)/2) / cos ((L1+L2)/2)

C1 = X + Y

C2 = X - Y

(usually not required)

tan (D/2) = tan ((L1-L2)/2) * sin X / sin Y

or

tan (D/2) = ctn ((L1+L2)/2) * cos X / cos Y

Note that if L1 = L2, then Y = 0 and C1 = C2 = X.

To convert D from degrees to nautical miles


multiply D by 60.

The angle (C2) that is calculated above is the internal angle of the spherical triangle at
the destination point,but the actual course angle at that point would be opposite by
180 degrees.

Spherical law of cosines


In spherical trigonometry, the law of cosines (also called the cosine rule for sides[1])
is a theorem relating the sides and angles of spherical triangles, analogous to the
ordinary law of cosines from planetrigonometry.

Spherical triangle solved by the law of cosines.

Given a unit sphere, a "spherical triangle" on the surface of the sphere is defined by the great circles
connecting three pointsu,v, andw on the sphere (shown at right). If the lengths of these three sides area (fromu
tov),b (fromu tow), andc (fromv to

w), and the angle of the corner oppositec isC, then the (first) spherical law of cosines
states:[2][1]

Since this is a unit sphere, the lengthsa,b, andc are simply equal to the angles (in
radians) subtended by those sides from the center of the sphere (for a non-unit sphere,
they are the distances divided by the radius). As a special case, forC = π / 2, then
and one obtains the spherical analogue of the Pythagorean theorem:
A variation on the law of cosines, the second spherical law of cosines,[3] (also called
the cosine rule for angles[1]) states:
whereA andB are the angles of the corners opposite to sidesa andb, respectively. It
can be obtained from consideration of a spherical triangle dual to the given one.

If the law of cosines is used to solve forc, the necessity of inverting the cosine
magnifies rounding errors whenc is small. In this case, the alternative formulation of
the law of haversines is preferable.[4]

Fors m all spherical triangles, i.e. for smalla,b, andc, the spherical law of cosines is
approximately the same as the ordinary planar law of cosines,
The error in this approximation, which can be obtained from the Maclaurin series for
the cosine and sine functions, is oforder
Proof

A proof of the law of cosines can be constructed as follows. [2] Letu,v, andw denote the unit vectors from the
center of the sphere to those corners of the triangle. Then, the lengths (angles) of the sides are given by the dot
products:

To get the angleC, we need thetangent vectorsta andtb atu along the directions of
sidesa andb, respectively. For example, the tangent vectorta is the unit vector
perpendicular tou in theu-v plane, whose direction is given by the component ofv
perpendicular tou. This means:

where for the denominator we have used the Pythagorean identity sin2(a) = 1 −
cos2(a). Similarly,

Then, the angleC is given by:

from which the law of cosines immediately follows.

Proof without vectors

To the diagram above, add a plane tangent to the sphere atu, and extend radii from
the center of the sphereO to meet the plane at pointsy andz. We then have two plane
triangles with a side in common: the triangle containingu,y andz and the one
containingO,y andz. Sides of the first triangle are tan a and tan b, with angle C
between them; sides of the second triangle are sec a and sec b, with angle X between
them, which is the angle we're trying to find. By the law of cosines for plane triangles
(and remembering thats ec2 of any angle istan2 + 1),

So
Multiply both sides by cosacosb and rearrange.

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