Calculator Question

[Mycroft]

Any ideas why my calculator is say that the cosine of pi is like... 0.99something? I thought that it was -1. I'm really terrible with calculators. Thanks to anyone who knows!

 

[mmm4444bot]

What exactly are you keying? Are you using the built-in value of pi, or are you entering some decimal approximation for pi?

What are the manufacturer and model?

 

[JeffM]

Any ideas why my calculator is say that the cosine of pi is like... 0.99something? I thought that it was -1. I'm really terrible with calculators. Thanks to anyone who knows!

My calculator will calculate the cosine with an argument in degrees or radians.

\(\displaystyle Cos(\pi\ degrees) \approx 0.998497\), which makes sense because, in degrees, \(\displaystyle \pi \approx 0\ and\ cos(0\ degrees) = 1.\)

Check your calculator to see whether it is using degrees or radians or provides an option to use either.

 

[Mycroft]

Oh thanks guys! Yeah, I think that was probably it, JeffM. I'm not quite used to this calculator yet!