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The term "trigonometry" was derived from Greek τρίγωνον trigōnon, "triangle" and μέτρον metron, "measure". [3]The modern words "sine" and "cosine" are derived from the Latin word sinus via mistranslation from Arabic (see Sine and cosine § Etymology).
Trigonometry was still so little known in 16th-century northern Europe that Nicolaus Copernicus devoted two chapters of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium to explain its basic concepts. Driven by the demands of navigation and the growing need for accurate maps of large geographic areas, trigonometry grew into a major branch of mathematics. [27]
To achieve the highest accuracy, a number of corrections were applied to all distances calculated from simple trigonometry: Curvature of the Earth; The non-spherical nature of the curvature of the Earth; Gravitational influence of mountains on pendulums and plumb lines [13] Refraction; Height above mean sea level
This is a timeline of pure and applied mathematics history.It is divided here into three stages, corresponding to stages in the development of mathematical notation: a "rhetorical" stage in which calculations are described purely by words, a "syncopated" stage in which quantities and common algebraic operations are beginning to be represented by symbolic abbreviations, and finally a "symbolic ...
ca. 1000 – Law of sines is discovered by Muslim mathematicians, but it is uncertain who discovers it first between Abu-Mahmud al-Khujandi, Abu Nasr Mansur, and Abu al-Wafa. ca. 1100 – Omar Khayyám "gave a complete classification of cubic equations with geometric solutions found by means of intersecting conic sections."
James Gregory FRS (November 1638 – October 1675) was a Scottish mathematician and astronomer.His surname is sometimes spelt as Gregorie, the original Scottish spelling.He described an early practical design for the reflecting telescope – the Gregorian telescope – and made advances in trigonometry, discovering infinite series representations for several trigonometric functions.
Trigonometry (from the Greek trigonon = three angles and metro = measure) is a branch of mathematics dealing with angles, triangles and trigonometric functions such as sine, cosine and tangent. It has some relationship to geometry , though there is disagreement on exactly what that relationship is; for some, trigonometry is just a subtopic of ...
Glen Van Brummelen has published the first major history in English of the origins and early development of trigonometry, The Mathematics of the Heavens and the Earth: The Early History of Trigonometry. [4] His second book, Heavenly Mathematics: The Forgotten Art of Spherical Trigonometry, concerns spherical trigonometry. [5] [6]