# My Favorite One-Liners: Part 76

In this series, I’m compiling some of the quips and one-liners that I’ll use with my students to hopefully make my lessons more memorable for them.

Here’s a problem that might arise in trigonometry:

Compute $\cos \displaystyle \frac{2017\pi}{6}$.

To begin, we observe that $\displaystyle \frac{2017}{6} = 336 + \displaystyle \frac{1}{6}$, so that

$\cos \displaystyle \frac{2017\pi}{6} = \cos \left( \displaystyle 336\pi + \frac{\pi}{6} \right)$.

We then remember that $\cos \theta$ is a periodic function with period $2\pi$. This means that we can add or subtract any multiple of $2\pi$ to the angle, and the result of the function doesn’t change. In particular, $-336\pi$ is a multiple of $2 \pi$, so that

$\cos \displaystyle \frac{2017\pi}{6} = \cos \left( \displaystyle 336\pi + \frac{\pi}{6} \right)$

$= \cos \left( \displaystyle 336\pi + \frac{\pi}{6} - 336\pi \right)$

$= \cos \displaystyle \frac{\pi}{6}$

$= \displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}$.

Said another way, $336\pi$ corresponds to $336/2 = 168$ complete rotations, and the value of cosine doesn’t change with a complete rotation. So it’s OK to just throw away any even multiple of $\pi$ when computing the sine or cosine of a very large angle. I then tell my class:

In mathematics, there’s a technical term for this idea; it’s called $\pi$ throwing.