Linguistic Trigonometry

[cdmackay]

(04-17-2019 10:29 AM)DrD Wrote:  When speaking of arc functions, such as ASIN, ACOS, ATAN, IF it is better to say, "inverse sin, inverse cos, inverse tan; THEN why?"

-Dale-

At school, here in the UK in the 80s, we were taught inverse. Indeed we all were told (and they still are) to get Casio calculators (e.g. fx-80) and they had \(\sin^{-1}\) printed above the keys. As to why: it was unthinking, being [sort of] the inverse of the sin function.

A more graphical intuition would have been nice, but I don't recall it being taught, nor the reason for the arc reference.