Find the cosine of the angle pi/4 on the unit circle
The unit circle defines the standard positions and values of trigonometric functions. For the angle $ \frac{\pi}{4} $ (or 45 degrees), we use the unit circle definition:
The coordinates of the point on the unit circle corresponding to the angle $ \frac{\pi}{4} $ are:
$$ ( \cos( \frac{\pi}{4} ), \sin( \frac{\pi}{4} )) $$
Since the unit circle has radius 1, we get:
$$ \cos( \frac{\pi}{4} ) = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}} = \frac{\sqrt{2}}{2} $$