What is the arccos of 3 ?
What is the arccosine of 3 ?
arccos 3 = ?
Real arccos function
The arccosine is the inverse cosine function.
Since the cosine function has output values from -1 to 1,
the arccosine function has input values from -1 to 1.
So arccos x is undefined for x=3.
arccos 3 is undefined
Complex arccos function
x = arccos(3)
cos(x) = cos(arccos(3))
cos(x) = 3
From Euler's formula
cos(x) = (eix + e-ix) / 2
(eix + e-ix) / 2 = 3
eix + e-ix = 6
Multiply with eix
e2ix + 1 = 6eix
y = eix
We get quadratic equation:
y2 - 6y + 1 = 0
y1,2 = (6 ± √32)/2
y1 = 5.828427 = eix
y2 = 0.171573 = eix
Apply ln on both sides gives the solution for arccos(3):
x1 = ln(5.828427) / i
x2 = ln(0.171573) / i