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The values of sine and cosine of 30 and 60 degrees are derived by analysis of the equilateral triangle. In an equilateral triangle, the 3 angles are equal and sum to 180°, therefore each corner angle is 60°.
Ptolemy's theorem states that the sum of the products of the lengths of opposite sides is equal to the product of the lengths of the diagonals. When those side-lengths are expressed in terms of the sin and cos values shown in the figure above, this yields the angle sum trigonometric identity for sine: sin(α + β) = sin α cos β + cos α sin β.
Even today sine tables are given as decimals to a certain precision. If sin(15°) is given as 0.1736, it means the rational 1736 ÷ 10000 is a good approximation of the actual infinite precision number. The only difference is that in the earlier days they had not standardized on decimal values (or powers of ten as denominator) for fractions.
For example, the cosine and sine of 2π ⋅ 5/37 are the real and imaginary parts, respectively, of the 5th power of the 37th root of unity cos(2π/37) + sin(2π/37)i, which is a root of the degree-37 polynomial x 37 − 1.
In mathematics, sine and cosine are trigonometric functions of an angle.The sine and cosine of an acute angle are defined in the context of a right triangle: for the specified angle, its sine is the ratio of the length of the side that is opposite that angle to the length of the longest side of the triangle (the hypotenuse), and the cosine is the ratio of the length of the adjacent leg to that ...
The sine and the cosine functions, for example, are used to describe simple harmonic motion, which models many natural phenomena, such as the movement of a mass attached to a spring and, for small angles, the pendular motion of a mass hanging by a string. The sine and cosine functions are one-dimensional projections of uniform circular motion.
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Abu al-Wafa had sine tables in 0.25° increments, to 8 decimal places of accuracy, and accurate tables of tangent values. [16] He also made important innovations in spherical trigonometry [ 17 ] [ 18 ] [ 19 ] The Persian polymath Nasir al-Din al-Tusi has been described as the creator of trigonometry as a mathematical discipline in its own right.