A to Z of Excel Functions: The ASIN Function

Welcome back to our regular A to Z of Excel Functions blog.  Today we look at the ASIN function.

The ASIN function

As the Pet Shop Boys announced, today’s function: “It’s ASIN”.  Yes, for the religious amongst you, we have finally committed ASIN.  It’s no use; the further we delve into this ad hoc series, the more bored I get and the worse the puns become. 

On a more serious note, this function returns the arcsine, or inverse sine, of a number.  The arcsine is the angle whose sine is number.  The returned angle is given in radians in the range - π/2 to π/2.

The ASIN function employs the following syntax to operate:

The ASIN function syntax has the following arguments:

• number: this is required.  The sine of the angle required: this must be in the range from -1 to 1.

To express the arcsine in degrees, multiply the result by 180/PI( ) or use the DEGREES function.

Please see my example below:

We’ll continue our A to Z of Excel Functions soon.  Keep checking back – there’s a new blog post every other business day.