#### Previous topic

numpy.arcsin

#### Next topic

numpy.arctan

# numpy.arccos

`numpy.``arccos`(x, /, out=None, *, where=True, casting='same_kind', order='K', dtype=None, subok=True[, signature, extobj]) = <ufunc 'arccos'>

  Trigonometric inverse cosine, element-wise.

  The inverse of `cos` so that, if `y = cos(x)`, then `x = arccos(y)`.

  Parameters: | x : array_like x-coordinate on the unit circle. For real arguments, the domain is [-1, 1]. out : ndarray, None, or tuple of ndarray and None, optional A location into which the result is stored. If provided, it must have a shape that the inputs broadcast to. If not provided or None, a freshly-allocated array is returned. A tuple (possible only as a keyword argument) must have length equal to the number of outputs. where : array_like, optional Values of True indicate to calculate the ufunc at that position, values of False indicate to leave the value in the output alone. **kwargs For other keyword-only arguments, see the ufunc docs.
  Returns: | angle : ndarray The angle of the ray intersecting the unit circle at the given x-coordinate in radians [0, pi]. If x is a scalar then a scalar is returned, otherwise an array of the same shape as x is returned.

  See also

  `cos`, `arctan`, `arcsin`, `emath.arccos`

  Notes

  `arccos` is a multivalued function: for each x there are infinitely many numbers z such that cos(z) = x. The convention is to return the angle z whose real part lies in [0, pi].

  For real-valued input data types, `arccos` always returns real output. For each value that cannot be expressed as a real number or infinity, it yields `nan` and sets the invalid floating point error flag.

  For complex-valued input, `arccos` is a complex analytic function that has branch cuts [-inf, -1] and [1, inf] and is continuous from above on the former and from below on the latter.

  The inverse `cos` is also known as acos or cos^-1.

  References

  M. Abramowitz and I.A. Stegun, “Handbook of Mathematical Functions”, 10th printing, 1964, pp. 79. http://www.math.sfu.ca/~cbm/aands/

  Examples

  We expect the arccos of 1 to be 0, and of -1 to be pi:

      >>> np.arccos([1, -1])
      array([ 0.        ,  3.14159265])

  Plot arccos:

      >>> import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
      >>> x = np.linspace(-1, 1, num=100)
      >>> plt.plot(x, np.arccos(x))
      >>> plt.axis('tight')
      >>> plt.show()

  (Source code, png, pdf)