What is the Inverse cos(cos(-pi/3)?

1 Answer
Aug 27, 2015

arccos(cos(-pi/3)) = pi/3arccos(cos(π3))=π3

Explanation:

In order that arccosarccos be a well-defined function, its range is defined to be [0, pi][0,π].

So if theta = arccos(cos(-pi/3))θ=arccos(cos(π3)), then cos(theta) = cos(-pi/3)cos(θ)=cos(π3) and theta in [0, pi]θ[0,π]

For any thetaθ we have cos(theta) = cos(-theta)cos(θ)=cos(θ), so we can see that in our case theta = pi/3θ=π3 satisfies the required conditions to be arccos(cos(-pi/3))arccos(cos(π3))

Here's the graph of arccos(theta)arccos(θ)

graph{arccos(x) [-5.168, 4.83, -0.86, 4.14]}