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In calculus, the method of normals was a technique invented by Descartes for finding normal and tangent lines to curves. It represented one of the earliest methods for constructing tangents to curves. The method hinges on the observation that the radius of a circle is always normal to the circle itself. With this in mind Descartes would ...
In mathematics, tables of trigonometric functions are useful in a number of areas. Before the existence of pocket calculators, trigonometric tables were essential for navigation, science and engineering. The calculation of mathematical tables was an important area of study, which led to the development of the first mechanical computing devices.
These identities are summarized in the first two rows of the following table, which also includes sum and difference identities for the other trigonometric functions. Sine sin ( α ± β ) {\displaystyle \sin(\alpha \pm \beta )}
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.
The first tables of trigonometric functions known to be made were by Hipparchus (c.190 – c.120 BCE) and Menelaus (c.70–140 CE), but both have been lost. Along with the surviving table of Ptolemy (c. 90 – c.168 CE), they were all tables of chords and not of half-chords, that is, the sine function. [1]
Speidell was a mathematics teacher in London [1] [2] and one of the early followers of the work John Napier had previously done on natural logarithms. [3] In 1619 Speidell published a table entitled "New Logarithmes" in which he calculated the natural logarithms of sines, tangents, and secants. [4] [5]
Trigonometric tables. Generating trigonometric tables; Āryabhaṭa's sine table; Bhaskara I's sine approximation formula; Madhava's sine table; Ptolemy's table of chords, written in the second century A.D. Rule of marteloio; Canon Sinuum, listing sines at increments of two arcseconds, published in the late 1500s
In trigonometry, the law of tangents or tangent rule [1] is a statement about the relationship between the tangents of two angles of a triangle and the lengths of the opposing sides. In Figure 1, a, b, and c are the lengths of the three sides of the triangle, and α, β, and γ are the angles opposite those three respective sides.