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Ptolemy used a circle of diameter 120, and gave chord lengths accurate to two sexagesimal (base sixty) digits after the integer part. [2] The chord function is defined geometrically as shown in the picture. The chord of an angle is the length of the chord between two points on a unit circle separated by that central angle.
A circular segment (in green) is enclosed between a secant/chord (the dashed line) and the arc whose endpoints equal the chord's (the arc shown above the green area). In geometry, a circular segment or disk segment (symbol: ⌓) is a region of a disk [1] which is "cut off" from the rest of the disk by a straight line.
A circle is drawn centered on the midpoint M of the line segment OP, having diameter OP, where O is again the center of the circle C (cyan). The intersection points T 1 and T 2 of the circle C and the new circle are the tangent points for lines passing through P, by the following argument (tan).
Using the intersecting chords theorem (also known as power of a point or secant tangent theorem) it is possible to calculate the radius r of a circle given the height H and the width W of an arc: Consider the chord with the same endpoints as the arc. Its perpendicular bisector is another chord, which is a diameter of the circle.
The theorem may also be proven using trigonometry: Let O = (0, 0), A = (−1, 0), and C = (1, 0). Then B is a point on the unit circle (cos θ, sin θ). We will show that ABC forms a right angle by proving that AB and BC are perpendicular — that is, the product of their slopes is equal to −1. We calculate the slopes for AB and BC:
A diagram illustrating great-circle distance (drawn in red) between two points on a sphere, P and Q. Two antipodal points, u and v are also shown. The great-circle distance, orthodromic distance, or spherical distance is the distance between two points on a sphere, measured along the great-circle arc between them. This arc is the shortest path ...
Chord: a line segment whose endpoints lie on the circle, thus dividing a circle into two segments. Circumference: the length of one circuit along the circle, or the distance around the circle. Diameter: a line segment whose endpoints lie on the circle and that passes through the centre; or the length of such a line segment. This is the largest ...
When the sagitta is small in comparison to the radius, it may be approximated by the formula [2] s ≈ l 2 8 r . {\displaystyle s\approx {\frac {l^{2}}{8r}}.} Alternatively, if the sagitta is small and the sagitta, radius, and chord length are known, they may be used to estimate the arc length by the formula