How do you find the exact value of arctan3?

1 Answer
Feb 6, 2016

arctan(3)=π3

Explanation:

First, recognize that the domain of the function arctan(x) is π2<x<π2.

Now, a little bit about what arctan(x) means:

arctan(x) and tan(x) are inverse functions.

This means that arctan(tan(x))=x and tan(arctan(x))=x.

We can see tangent and arctangent as "undoing" one another. Another way we can see arctan(x) is as tan(x) in reverse.

We know that tan(π4)=1. This means that arctan(1)=π4.

We see that:

  • in tan(x), x is an angle
  • in arctan(x), x is the value of the tangent function

So, back to the original question:

What is the value of arctan(3)?

This is essentially asking, the tangent of what angle gives 3 ?

Since tan(π3)=3, we know that tan(π3)=3.

We can reverse this with the arctan function to see that

arctan(3)=π3