85.

58 A Trigonometric Identity

Darrell Desbrow

The Mathematical Gazette, Vol. 85, No. 504. (Nov., 2001), pp. 477-479.

Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0025-5572%28200111%292%3A85%3A504%3C477%3A8ATI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N

The Mathematical Gazette is currently published by The Mathematical Association.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained
prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in
the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/journals/mathas.html.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic
journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers,
and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take
advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

http://www.jstor.org
Sun Dec 16 06:25:38 2007
NOTES

1+45 0 1-45
Let -= e then- = -e-*, so that:
2 2
for odd n, f , = cosh no, and for even n, f n = 5sinh n8
(and, for applications, it will be found worth noting that sinh 8 = $,
cosh8 = 9).
These formulae are doubtless not new, but I do not recollect ever having
seen them before, and they provide quite neat proofs of some relations. For
example, to prove that f n (f, + + f n - = f 2, :
If n is odd, then
LHS = $ cosh n8 {sinh (n + 1) 0 + sinh (n - 1) 8)

= cosh n0 sinh n0 cosh 8

= 4 x 2 cosh n8 sinh n8 x 9
= $ sinh 2n8
= f2n
with very similar calculations if n is even.
This result can easily be seen to be equivalent to fin = f i + 1 -f:-,, and
:
thus has a sibling: f 2, + 1 = f + 1 + f: . Both of these can be demonstrated
by using the hyperbolic equivalents of the 'double-angle formulae'.
I would recommend that the reader looks out an exercise on the
Fibonacci series or, better still, discovers some relationships for themself
and sees whether these can be demonstrated reasonably neatly on these
lines. (It would seem that the only drawback is the need, in most cases, to
set out the calculations twice, for each possible parity of n, but this is no
problem.) Have fun.
A. ROBERT PARGETER
10 Turnpike, Sampford Peverell, Tiverton EX16 7BN
85.58 A trigonometric identity
Recently Nick Lord (Letter to the Editor, July 2000) reminded us of
Hadamard's dictum that 'the shortest path to a real variable result may pass
through the complex plane'. May I take the liberty here of modifying
'shortest' to 'easiest', in so far as complex algebra may put less brain-strain
on those, like myself, who, with increasing years, have difficulty with
trigonometric formulas which once flowed effortlessly. I can illustrate my
point nicely by offering a complex algebraic proof of the identity
cosn8-cosna - -
2[sina. cos(n- 1)8 + ... + sin(n- 1)a.cos81 + -sinna
,
cos8 - cosa sin a sin a
where n is a positive integer and 8, a are real numbers-superficially at
least with sin a + 0, i.e., with a # 0 (mod n). This avoids some rather
478 THE MATHEMATICAL GAZETTE

'heavy' trigonometry in the recent proof by Martin [ I ] of an integral

evaluated by Chorlton.
When 8 = *a (mod 2n), the term on the left becomes the indefinite
form '010'. In that case, we may define it 'by continuity in 8' to take the
definite value (n sinna)l sina. With that definition, the equality will persist
in this exceptional case, 'by continuity in 8', when it is shown to hold
unexceptionally. Thus hereafter we restrict attention to the case
8 # *a (mod 237).
Write r: = el", n = el". Note that z # a. since 8 # + a (mod 2n) by
agreed restriction. Then

So that
cos n8 - cos n a C"' - a" (2' - a"),
C = = re = 2re
cos a - c o s a cos 8 - cosa (z - a) (z - a)
Now, when a # a (i.e. a # 0 (modn)).
(C"' -
an) -
( - a ) ( - )

quoting the identity - b"

-L[
- (a -
a - ii
=
+ ,,, + ( a n - 1 - an-') + -

(w - b) ( w n - + bwfl-' + . ..
z-a
+
I
at)- a-n 5

/,"-I)
for each complex w, b. Thus
1
~=2re----[(n-a);"-'
a - a+ . +(an-'-an-')z+(an-an)-] - a

= 2re- ' [(2i sins)?-' + .

2i sin a

+ (2i sin(n - l)a)z] + 2re

[-I
2i sinna z
2irina - a

2 sinna

= :[sina.cos(n-I)@ + ... + sin(n-l)a.cos8] + ?.2re-&,

sin a sina z-a
from which the result follows after the reader checks that 2re(z/(z - 6)) = 1
when, as here, I z I = I = / a 1.
The reader might care to check that, in the omitted case rr = 0 (mod n),
the identity is, 'by continuity in a',
2 cosna
C = --- [cosa. cos(n- 1)8 + ... + (n - l)cos(n- 1)a. c o s ~ +] n-.
cosa COY a
NOTES

if 0 z *a (mod 2x), and then 'by continuity in 8 ' ,

2 cosna
-[cosa.cos(n-1)a
=
cos a
+ ... + (n-l)cos(n-l)a.cosa] + n-,
cosa
otherwise. This latter is merely the formula

in elaborate disguise.

Reference
1. D. Martin, On the integral in Notes 83.15 and 83.63, Math. Gaz. 84
(July 2000) pp. 301-302.
DARRELL DESBROW
Overholm, Dalbeattie, Kirkcudbrightshire DG5 4HX
e-mail: dd@maths.ed.ac.uk

85.59 Proof without words

ax - by = h(a + b)(x - y) + J(x + y)(a - b).

YUKIO KOBAYASHI
Department of Information Systems Science, Faculty of Engineering,
Soka University 1-236Tangi-cho, Hachioji-shi, Tokyo 192-8577, Japan
e-mail : koba@t.soka.ac.jp

85.60 A trigonometric proof of Ptolemy's theorem

Ptolemy's theorem was bplliantly employed by Claudius Ptolemy for
the development of a table of chords in the first book of his Almagest, the
great definitive Greek work on astronomy. This theorem states that, for a
cyclic quadrilateral, the product of the lengths of the diagonals is equal to
the sum of the products of the lengths of the pairs of opposite sides. Several
proofs for this theorem are well known, using the inversion transformation
([I, pp. 2-7 and pp. 74-93], [2, pp. 124-1391, [3, pp. 297-298.]), the law of
cosines from trigonometry, or simple computations with similar triangles.
The purpose of this note is to give another trigonometric proof of Ptolemy's
theorem. We need the following lemma:
http://www.jstor.org

LINKED CITATIONS
- Page 1 of 1 -

You have printed the following article:

85.58 A Trigonometric Identity
Darrell Desbrow
The Mathematical Gazette, Vol. 85, No. 504. (Nov., 2001), pp. 477-479.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0025-5572%28200111%292%3A85%3A504%3C477%3A8ATI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N

This article references the following linked citations. If you are trying to access articles from an
off-campus location, you may be required to first logon via your library web site to access JSTOR. Please
visit your library's website or contact a librarian to learn about options for remote access to JSTOR.

Reference

1
84.44 On the Integral in Notes 83.15 and 83.63
D. Martin
The Mathematical Gazette, Vol. 84, No. 500. (Jul., 2000), pp. 301-302.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0025-5572%28200007%292%3A84%3A500%3C301%3A8OTIIN%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O

NOTE: The reference numbering from the original has been maintained in this citation list.