In trigonometry, the law of cosines relates the lengths of the sides of a triangle to the cosine of one of its angles. Using notation as in Fig. 1, the law of cosines states where γ denotes the angle contained between sides of lengths a and b and opposite the side of length c.
Example:
The law of cosines allows us to find angle (or side length) measurements for triangles other than right triangles. The third side in the example given would ONLY = 15 if the angle between the two sides was 90 degrees. In the example, the angle between the two sides is NOT 90 degrees; it's 87.
La regla del coseno establece que el cuadrado de la longitud de cualquier lado de un triángulo es igual a la suma de los cuadrados de la longitud de los otros lados menos el doble de su producto multiplicado por el coseno de su ángulo incluido.
