Or should I say, Carrot Top's in the spreadsheet! Excel-lent to be here, get it? "Excel-lent?" Alright, never mind! So today, we're gonna have a wild ride through the trigonometric world of ATAN, ATAN2, and ATANH in Microsoft Excel! Buckle up!
🥕 ATAN:
This function's like the roadie that tells you the angle of your guitar's tilt, but in radians, man! So if you give it a number, it gives you the arctangent, which is basically the angle whose tangent is the number you gave it. In Excel-speak, it's =ATAN(number).
=ATAN(1) will give you 0.7854 radians, which is 45 degrees if you're old school and still using degrees like my grandma!
🥕 ATAN2:
Now ATAN2, this is the party animal of the trig world! It takes TWO arguments, X and Y, and gives you the arctangent of the quotient of its arguments, but it also considers the quadrant in which the point (X, Y) is located. So you'll have the full 360-degree range, baby! In Excel, it's like =ATAN2(X, Y).
=ATAN2(1,1) will give you 0.7854 radians, just like ATAN(1), but the magic happens when the numbers are negative.
=ATAN2(-1,1) will give you -0.7854 radians! See? It knows the quadrant!
🥕 ATANH:
Hold onto your prop trunk, 'cause ATANH is the ATAN that went to hyper-space! Instead of dealing with circles, it's all about hyperbolas! It gives you the inverse hyperbolic tangent of a number, between -1 and 1, except the edges. You get it by =ATANH(number).
=ATANH(0.5) will give you around 0.5493. It's like it's telling you, "Hey man, I'm not a circle, I'm a hyperbola, deal with it!"
🤔 So What's the Difference?
- ATAN: One argument, deals with circles, gives you the arctangent.
- ATAN2: Two arguments, knows the quadrant, still circle business.
- ATANH: One argument but in hyperbolic style! Whoa!
Alright, that's it! So the next time you're in Excel and you wanna go trigonometric, you know your ATAN from your ATAN2, and you're even invited to the hyperbolic after-party with ATANH!
Take it from Carrot Top, don't just excel, be Excel-lent! 🥕🔥🎸