7.

3 Proving Trigonometric Identities

When listening to Mr. Burger on how to prove trig identities he stated that you might
want to work with both sides and come to common end statement. I think of proving trig
identities the same way you did proofs in geometry. You typically want to work with one
side, massage it, and hopefully you will create the expression on the other side of the
equal sign. These types of problems should be viewed as ‘given a problem and its
answer, how do you get to the answer?’. You want to keep in mind all of the trig
identities you have been exposed to thus far to assist you in proving trig identities.

1 + tan θ
Example Prove: = tan θ
1 + cot θ

By examining both sides of the equal sides, it appears that you want to begin with the left
side in order to create the right side.
sin θ
1+
1 + tan θ cos θ
=
1 + cot θ 1 + cos θ
sin θ

cos θ sin θ
+
= cosθ cosθ
sin θ cos θ
+
sin θ sin θ

cos θ + sin θ
= cos θ
sin θ + cos θ
sin θ

cosθ + sin θ sin θ + cosθ

= ÷
cos θ sin θ

cos θ + sin θ sin θ

= ·
cos θ sin θ + cos θ

sin θ
= = tan θ
cos θ

The reason why it was best to convert in terms of sine and cosine is because the resultant
tan θ is a trig function that can be expressed that way. There will be times when you will
have to begin with the right side of the equal sign and work your way to create the left
side of the equal sign.
Try the following:

Prove.
1
1. − cos x = sin x tan x
cos x

2. cot α + tan α = sec α csc α

sec 2 θ − tan 2 θ
3. =1
2sin θ + 2 cos θ
2 2 2

Answers:

1 1 cos 2 x
− cos x = −
cos x cos x cos x
1 − cos 2 x
=
cos x
sin 2 x sin x sin x sin x
= = = sin x = tan x sin x = sin x tan x
cos x cos x cos x

cos α sin α
cot α + tan α = +
sin α cos α
cos 2 α sin 2 α
= +
sin α cos α sin α cos α
cos 2 α + sin 2 α 1 1 1
= = = ⋅ = csc α sec α = secα cscα
sin α cos α sin α cos α sin α cos α

sec 2 θ − tan 2 θ 1
=
2sin θ + 2 cos θ 2 ( sin θ + cos 2 θ )
2 2 2

1 1
= =
2(1) 2