What is sohcahtoa and how do you do it?

The sohcahtoa is a mnemonics used in trigonometry. The three common trigonometric functions are sine, cosine and tangent. However, this mnemonics is only applied for the right triangle. A right triangle contains 3 sides following called the opposite, adjacent and hypotenuse. These trigonometric functions are defined by a ratio between the two specific sides in order to get the angle.

For sine, it is a ratio between the opposite and hypotenuse. Notice that the first letters are denoted to form a mnemonics. The first letter of sine is S, the first letter of opposite is O, and the first letter of hypothenus is H. As you combine them, SOH is being abbreviated so that you will know what the formula of a sine is.

For the rest, the cosine is a ratio between adjacent and hypotenuse (cah), and the tangent is a ratio between opposite and adjacent (toa).