226 - Derivations of Inverse Trig Derivatives

Nathaniel Traktman

April 2018

1 Introduction

Hey all, I figured I’d write this up because when I learned the inverse trig deriva-
tives they seemed like they came out of nowhere and you were just supposed to
memorize them instead of building any kind of intuition. This doesn’t make any
sense at all, because you have all the tools you need to prove these derivatives
at your disposal already.

2 Sine

Let us define our function as y = sin−1 (x) for − π2 ≤ y ≤ π

2

•sin(y) = x
•cosyy 0 = 1
•y 0 = 1
cos(y)

Recall: cos2 (y) + sin2 (y) = 1, so:

p
cos(y) = 1 − sin2 (y)
•y 0 = √ 1
1−sin2 (y)
−1
y = sin (x) so
•y 0 = √ 1
1−sin2 (sin−1 (x))
−1
sin(sin (x)) is just x, so:

1
 y0 = √ 1
1−x2

3 Cosine

Cosine is nearly identical. See if you can do it on your own!

4 Tangent

•y = tan−1 (x)
•tan(y) = x
•sec2 (y)y 0 = 1
•y 0 = 1
sec2 (y)

Recall: sec2 (y) = tan2 (y) + 1

•y 0 = 1
tan2 (y)+1
1
•y = tan2 (tan−1 (x))+1

•y 0 = 1
x2 +1

5 Secant

•y = sec−1 (x) for 0 ≤ y ≤ π; x 6= π

2

•sec(y) = x
•sec(y)tan(y)y 0 = 1
•y 0 = 1
sec(y)tan(y)

•y 0 = 1
sec(y)sec(y)sin(y)
p q
1
From our earlier derivations we know that sin(y) = 1 − cos2 (y) = 1− sec2 (y)

•y 0 = √1
sec(y) sec2 (y)−1
0 √1
•y =
sec(arcsec(x)) sec2 (arcsec(x))−1
Each sec(arcsec) pair will result in x, but there may be a bit of a wrinkle.

2
 The sign of the squared sec doesn’t matter because it’s already positive from
being squared, but the non-squared secant is up for debate.
We have our range of defined y from the first line, and we can see that the
1
sign of the original sec(y)tan(y) will define the sign of the derivative. We also
know that sec( π2 ) and arcsec(0) are undefined.
Thus, after a little examination, we see that
•y 0 (sec−1 (x)) = √1
|x| x2 −1
where |x| = x for π
2 > x ≥ 0 and x for π
2 <x≤π

6 Cosecant

The derivation for y = csc−1 (x) is very similar, but with sine considerations
instead of cosine considerations for the sign of |x| .

7 Cotangent

The derivation for y = cot−1 (x) is very similar to that of arctan. See if you can
do these last two on your own too!