JavaScript Math Methods

Hello everyone, and welcome to another exciting JavaScript lesson. In the last lessons you have been seeing other methods being used in JS (for example, the string methods). We shall go further into exploring other methods. This time, it’s going to be math methods. Do not move an inch because it’s going to be a very exciting. Before we look at what a math method is, let’s have an overview of math objects.

A math object in JavaScript is a static built-in object that includes properties and methods used in performing mathematical tasks. Talking about math properties, they have the syntax Math.property. Some examples are Math.E that returns Euler’s number, Math.PI that returns PI, Math.LN2 that returns the natural logarithm of 2, and many others.

The various JavaScript methods contained in the math object, thus, make mathematical operations easier and reduce effort as well as time in math-oriented programming. Some JS methods include abs( ), ceil( ), cos( ), sqrt( ), pow( ), log( ) etc. For our lesson, we shall make use of the Math.round(x), Math.abs(x), Math.pow(x, a), and Math.cos(x) methods, where x is an argument. These methods return the argument x rounded to its nearest integer, the absolute value of x, the value of x raised to the power a, and the cosine of x respectively. Consider the following lines of code below.

var Number1 = prompt(“Enter the first odd number: ”);
var Number2 = prompt(“Enter the second odd number: ”);
var Answer = Number1/Number2;
var roundval = Math.round(Answer);
var absval = Math.abs(Answer);
var powval = Math.pow(Answer, a);
var cosval = Math.cos(Answer);
alert(“Rounded Value = ” + roundval + “, Absolute value = ” + absval + “, Answer squared = ” + powval + “, Cosine = ” + cosval);

What we should expect from the above code is being asked to input two different odd numbers, after which it takes the first number and divides it by the second. The final answers displayed should be the rounded value of the answer, the absolute value, the answer squared, and the cosine of the answer.

Let us do a test run by using -25 and 17. 

As seen above, we have input our first odd number to be 25, and our second odd number to be 17. And our various expectations were met. You can confirm by using a calculator.

Now that you have seen the basics of math methods, why don’t you go ahead and explore the others. It is going to be an exciting adventure. Thanks for completing this lesson, and be ready for other exciting ones.

Happy coding.