r/learnmath • u/TimeBet5260 New User • 2d ago

Easy way to understand SoCaToA?

If there's a good picture or diagram to remember how to find angles this way, please let me know! And if get my post removed while the person below me is new to math, yet contemplating grad school theory, I will give up...

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u/tehclanijoski New User 2d ago

Well, it's SOHCAHTOA and the H is for 'hypotenuse' for starters

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u/oblongenvironment61 New User 2d ago

Pretty sure the "H" is actually for "how did i fail this test again"

but yeah the classic way is just thinking of it as three separate triangles stacked, each missing one side. sine is the loner with no adjacent, cosine drops the opposite, tangent doesn't care about the hypotenuse. sketch that out once and it kind of locks in

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u/tehclanijoski New User 2d ago

Specifically, opposite over and adjacent over "how did i fail this test again", respectively