small angle approximation

created by eric+
(idea) by eric+ (5.8 y) (print)   (I like it!) 1 C! Sat Aug 05 2000 at 16:18:31

Sometimes it is helpful to remove trig functions from equations in complicated calculations. For small angles (less than 15o or so), the following approximations work reasonably well: 

sin X ≅ X

            X2
cos X ≅ 1 - --
            2

        sin X
tan X = ----- ≅ sin X ≅ X
        cos X
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