I have a triangle that I know the lengths of all the sides. But I need to know the angles. Needs to

poklanima5lqp3

poklanima5lqp3

Answered question

2022-05-09

I have a triangle that I know the lengths of all the sides. But I need to know the angles. Needs to work with non-right triangles as well.
I know it is possible, and I could have easily done this years ago when I was in trig, but it has completely slipped my mind.
I'd prefer a solution that I can code into a function, or something that does not require constructing right triangles from it.

Answer & Explanation

Blaine Andrews

Blaine Andrews

Beginner2022-05-10Added 20 answers

As has been mentioned in comments, the formula that you're looking for is the Law of Cosines. The three formulations are:
c 2 = a 2 + b 2 2 a b cos ( C )
b 2 = a 2 + c 2 2 a c cos ( B )
a 2 = b 2 + c 2 2 b c cos ( A )
You can use this law to find all three angles. Alternatively, once you have one of the angles, you can find the next using the Law of Sines, which states that:
sin A a = sin B b = sin C c
And of course, once you have solved for two of the angles, you need only subtract their sum from 180 degrees to get the measure of the third.

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