Notes 1/26 - Law of cosines

1/26 - And we're back to school. . . Today we took notes on "the law of cosines." This formula allows you to solve for any triangle (find all values for angles and sides) if at least 3 of these values are known. The law of cosines works with any type of triangle - not just right triangles. One thing to remember in notation is that uppercase letters refer to angles and lowercase to sides. In solving for a triangle using the law of cosines it does not matter which value you look for first, as long as you can find the others taking that approach. Also, remember to check if the triangle is even possible in the first place. The following is the formula for law of cosines:

a^2 = b^2 + c^2 - 2bc*cosA