Identities Without Variables
The curious identity
is a special case of an identity that contains one variable:
Similarly:
The same cosine identity in radians is
Similarly:
The following is perhaps not as readily generalized to an identity containing variables (but see explanation below):
Degree measure ceases to be more felicitous than radian measure when we consider this identity with 21 in the denominators:
The factors 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10 may start to make the pattern clear: they are those integers less than 21/2 that are relatively prime to (or have no prime factors in common with) 21. The last several examples are corollaries of a basic fact about the irreducible cyclotomic polynomials: the cosines are the real parts of the zeroes of those polynomials; the sum of the zeroes is the Möbius function evaluated at (in the very last case above) 21; only half of the zeroes are present above. The two identities preceding this last one arise in the same fashion with 21 replaced by 10 and 15, respectively.
Many of those curious identities stem from more general facts like the following:
and
Combining these gives us
If n is an odd number (n = 2m + 1) we can make use of the symmetries to get
Read more about this topic: List Of Trigonometric Identities
Famous quotes containing the word variables:
“Science is feasible when the variables are few and can be enumerated; when their combinations are distinct and clear. We are tending toward the condition of science and aspiring to do it. The artist works out his own formulas; the interest of science lies in the art of making science.”
—Paul Valéry (1871–1945)