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How to remember trigonometry ratios

By Murray Bourne, 05 Oct 2009

I recently tweeted the following (on Twitter, of course):

Tip for remembering sin, cos and tan: Some Old Hags Can't Always Hide Their Old Age (sin = Opp/Hyp, cos = Adj/Hyp, tan = Opp/Adj)

There were several replies which I thought you may enjoy (some are a bit racey and not very politically correct - you've been warned):

From CardsChic: Oh Heck (sine) Another Hour (cos) Of Algebra (tan)

From sumidiot: From one of my students: Can A Hooker Take Off A Set Of Handcuffs?

From wmcneary: Some Old Hippy Caught Another Hippy Trippin' On Acid

From tea_robot: "Saints On High Can Always Have Tea Or Alcohol" is what I was taught!

From LunaticNeko: My Tip: Open a "Book of Trigonometry Problems" or something, then drill through from beginning to end. You'll remember it fast! ^ ^

From chris_1974: "Sex On Highways Causes Awful Havoc To Our Automobiles" is one a class once created!

See the 18 Comments below.

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HTML: You can use simple tags like <b>, <a href="...">, etc.

To enter math, you can can either:

  1. Use simple calculator-like input in the following format (surround your math in backticks, or qq on tablet or phone):
    `a^2 = sqrt(b^2 + c^2)`
    (See more on ASCIIMath syntax); or
  2. Use simple LaTeX in the following format. Surround your math with \( and \).
    \( \int g dx = \sqrt{\frac{a}{b}} \)
    (This is standard simple LaTeX.)

NOTE: You can mix both types of math entry in your comment.

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