How to find an angle using Tan?

Question

What angle (to the nearest degree) corresponds to the tan 0.6 or what is tan-1(0.6)?

So, what is the difference between tan 0.6 and tan-1(0.6)?

Wouldn't I just calculate tan-1 0.6 and convert the radians to a degree?

Answer 1

Tan is a ratio between the shorter legs of a right-angled triangle

arctan is the measure of the angle having that ratio, or the inverse of tan

so (tan(arctan(x)) = x

and arctan(tan(x)) = x

Answer 2

tan(.6) = 0.68413680834 ... = the tangent of the angle .6

tan-1(0.6) = 0.540419500 ... = the angle whose tangent is .6



Note: the -1 should be small and raised up like an exponent, but I can't type that here.

Also, another notation for tan-1(0.6) is arctan(.6)

Answer 3

Why not set your calculator to "degrees," then calculate...



arctan (0.6) ≈ 30.964º



if you want the tan (0.6 radians), change the setting and...



tan (0.6) ≈ 0.6841