Trigonometry Examples

$\cos (x) + 1 = 0$

Step 1

Subtract $1$ from both sides of the equation.

$\cos (x) = - 1$

Step 2

Take the inverse cosine of both sides of the equation to extract $x$ from inside the cosine.

$x = \arccos (- 1)$

Step 3

Simplify the right side.

Tap for more steps...

Step 3.1

The exact value of $\arccos (- 1)$ is $π$ .

$x = π$

Step 4

The cosine function is negative in the second and third quadrants. To find the second solution, subtract the reference angle from $2 π$ to find the solution in the third quadrant.

$x = 2 π - π$

Step 5

Subtract $π$ from $2 π$ .

$x = π$

Step 6

Find the period of $\cos (x)$ .

Tap for more steps...

Step 6.1

The period of the function can be calculated using $\frac{2 π}{| b |}$ .

$\frac{2 π}{| b |}$

Step 6.2

Replace $b$ with $1$ in the formula for period.

$\frac{2 π}{| 1 |}$

Step 6.3

The absolute value is the distance between a number and zero. The distance between $0$ and $1$ is $1$ .

$\frac{2 π}{1}$

Step 6.4

Divide $2 π$ by $1$ .

$2 π$

Step 7

The period of the $\cos (x)$ function is $2 π$ so values will repeat every $2 π$ radians in both directions.

$x = π + 2 π n$ , for any integer $n$