Definition:Inverse Cosine/Terminology

Terminology for Inverse Cosine
There exists the popular but misleading notation $\cos^{-1} x$, which is supposed to denote the inverse cosine function.

However, note that as $\cos x$ is not an injection (even though by restriction of the codomain it can be considered surjective), it does not have a well-defined inverse.

The $\arccos$ function as defined here has a well-specified image which (to a certain extent) is arbitrarily chosen for convenience.

Therefore it is preferred to the notation $\cos^{-1} x$, which (as pointed out) can be confusing and misleading.

Sometimes, $\operatorname{Cos}^{-1}$ (with a capital $\text C$) is taken to mean the same as $\arccos$.

However, this can also be confusing due to the visual similarity between that and the lower case $\text c$.

Some sources hyphenate: '''arc-cosine.