DISCOVERING THE COSINE LAW

ORIGINALLY ADAPTED FROM NZMATH

1. Using your current knowledge of trig ratios, how could you find the length of BC in triangle ABC below?
Show any attempts and explain any difficulties.

2. Did you try using Pythagorean Theorem in question 1? Why are you unable to use this method?

3. But maybe it is possible to take the Pythagorean Theorem and extend it so that we can apply it to
triangles that are non-right angle. Open the Geogebra worksheet provided in the additional resources
section of the class website and familiarize yourself with it. Using this worksheet complete the tables
below.

Table 1 Length of b = c = 3

Angle A cos A a a2 b2 + c2 a2 (b2 + c2) Correction Comments

30

45

60

90

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 Table 2 Length of b = 6, c = 3

Angle A cos A a a2 b2 + c2 a2 (b2 + c2) Correction Comments

30

45

60

90

Table 3 Length of b = 3, c = 6

Angle A cos A a a2 b2 + c2 a2 (b2 + c2) Correction Comments

30

45

60

90

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 Table 4 Length of b = c = 6

Angle A cos A a a2 b2 + c2 a2 (b2 + c2) Correction Comments

30

45

60

90

4. Using the tables above, what conjecture can you make? Explain in detail.

5. With the conjecture above, find the length of BC from question 1.

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 6. Lets try to prove our conjecture from question 4. Try coming up with a proof on your own using your
knowledge of trig ratios and Pythagorean Theorem, and the triangle below.

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7. Excellent. Weve proved our conjecture! But we are not quite done yet. What has been true about angle A for
all the triangles we have explored so far? Theyve been acute. What if our angle A is obtuse? Does the rule still
work? Prove the Law of Cosines for an obtuse angle.

Hint Triangle CBD will be important. Also, thinking of angle CAD as 180-A will also help.

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8. It looks like our rule works for both obtuse and acute angles. Woohoo! But what about angles of exactly 90
degrees? Lets test it out and see what happens. Use our rule to solve for the unknown side below.

What do you notice? Explain.

Use your newly discovered knowledge of the Law of Cosines to solve the following problems.

Find the length of AC.

Find the value of angle B.