Proving the Sine Rule

The Sine rule states that in ANY triangle

Are you just going to take my word for it? Draw a triangle and use your ruler and a calculator to
check if the Sine rule is true for your triangle.

Well now. Maybe you were just lucky with your choice of SPECIFIC triangle? How can we know that
the Sine rule will be true for ALL triangle? To be sure, we need to prove the Sine Rule.

The proof:

1. Observe the triangle on the right. It doesn’t

have any numbers in it, it’s not specific, it
could be any triangle.

2. What is and

3. Rearrange the terms a bit, so that you have h as the subject.

h=

4. From step 3 you should have an equation. Can you rearrange the terms in this equation to
arrive at part of the Sine rule.

Did you get If you did, write a nice fat “Q.E.D” next to it in step 5.
“Q.E.D” stands for Quod Erat Demonstrandum and is latin for “that which was to be
demonstrated”.

(But what about The reason it was left out was because we constructed the height
through angle B. If h had been constructed through angle A instead, we would have ended
with . Either way, the Sine rule is proven.)
Proving the Cosine Rule

The Cosine rule states that in ANY triangle

Are you just going to take my word for it? Draw a triangle and use your ruler and a calculator to
check if the Cosine rule is true for your triangle.

Well now. Maybe you were just lucky with your choice of SPECIFIC triangle? How can we know that
the Cosine rule will be true for ALL triangles? To be sure we need to prove the Cosine Rule.

The proof:

1. Observe the triangle in the circle on the

right. It’s a general triangle – I didn’t specify
any lengths or angles – so it could be any
triangle.

2. What are the coordinates of points A, B,

and C?
A=
B=
C=

3. What’s the distance, c, between point A

and B?

4. Using your result in step 3, square c and simplify.

5. It’s starting to look right, isn’t it? But I bet there is this one messy piece in your results in step
4. Simplify it by recalling Pythagoras rule and looking at the triangle in the circle.

Did you arrive at If you did, write a nice fat “Q.E.D” next to it
in step 5. “Q.E.D” stands for Quod Erat Demonstrandum and is latin for “that which was to
be demonstrated”.