Graphs of the Tangent, Cotangent, Cosecant and Secant Functions
Contents
Secant
The secant of an angle is the reciprocal of its cosine.
The range of the function is , so the range of is , which is all possible outputs of 1/x for . Since is not defined, is not defined whenever ; that is, when for any integer k. We can see that there is a vertical asymptote at each of these values in the graph of .
Cosecant
The cosecant of an angle is the reciprocal of its sine.
The range of the function is the same as the range for (). is not defined whenever ; that is, when for any integer k. We can see that there is a vertical asymptote at each of these values in the graph of .
Cotangent
The cotangent of an angle is the reciprocal of its tangent.
The range of the function is , the same as the range of its reciprocal . , so is not defined whenever ; that is, when for any integer k. We can see that there is a vertical asymptote at each of these values in the graph of .
Resources
- Graphs of the Tangent, Cotangent, Cosecant and Secant Functions. Written notes created by Professor Esparza, UTSA.