Function Results as Arguments

You may have noticed that one function is nested inside another:

double result = Math.cos( Math.toRadians(degrees) );

This is perfectly fine, and is a reasonable way to write the code. As long as the inner function returns a value that is correct for the outer function this works fine. In fact, we could combine this line with the println():

// calculate its cosine and print the result
System.out.println("cosine: " + Math.cos(  Math.toRadians(degrees) ) );

It is a matter of taste, sometimes, how much to combine computations into one statement. Your goal should be to make the logic clear, not to save typing.