Arctan calculator
Calculate the arctangent of a number
Enter the number for which you want to calculate the arctangent below:
How to calculate an arctangent?
The arctangent of a number is the angle whose tangent is equal to that number. In mathematical terms, if you have a number x and you calculate tan(x), then arctan(tan(x)) is equal to x. The arctangent is often denoted as atan or tan^(-1).
The arctangent is a widely used function in trigonometry, a branch of mathematics dealing with the relationships between the angles and the lengths of the sides of triangles. It is often used to determine the angle of a right-angled triangle, given the lengths of two of its sides.
In JavaScript, the arctangent of a number can be calculated using the built-in function Math.atan(). This function returns the result in radians. To convert the result to degrees, you need to multiply it by 180/π.
It is important to note that, although the tangent of 45 degrees and 225 degrees are both 1, the arctangent of 1 will always be 45 degrees. This is because the Math.atan() function returns a value between -π/2 and π/2 (i.e., -90 and 90 degrees). For angles in other quadrants, you can use the Math.atan2(y, x) function, which returns a value between -π and π, depending on the signs of x and y.
For example, if you want to know the angle between the positive x-axis and the point (x, y), you can calculate it with Math.atan2(y, x).