Graphs of the Tangent, Cotangent, Cosecant and Secant Functions
Contents
Tangent
The tangent of an angle is equivalent to the sine of that angle divided by the cosine of that angle.
The range of the function is . Note that since , 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 .
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 .
Resources
- Graphs of the Tangent, Cotangent, Cosecant and Secant Functions. Written notes created by Professor Esparza, UTSA.
- [https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/A-level_Mathematics/CIE/Pure_Mathematics_2/Trigonometry