History of Trigonometry
Rome Fiedler
History of Mathematics 501
University of Akron
April 29, 2012
History of Trigonometry: An Introduction Trigonometry is useful in our world. By exploring where these concepts come from provides an understanding in putting this mathematics to use. The term Trigonometry comes from the Greek word trigon, meaning triangle and the Greek word meatria meaning measurement. However it is not native to Greek in origin. The mathematics comes from multiple people over a span of thousands of years and has touched over every major civilization. It is a combination of geometry, and astronomy and has many practical applications over history. Trigonometry is a branch of math first created by 2nd century BC by the Greek mathematician Hipparchus. The history of trigonometry and of trigonometric functions sticks to the general lines of the history of math. Early research of triangles could be found in the 2nd millennium BC, in Egyptian and Babylonian math. Methodical research of trigonometric functions started in Greek math, and it reached India as part of Greek astronomy. In Indian astronomy, the research of trigonometric functions flourished in the Gupta dynasty, particularly as a result of Aryabhata. Throughout the Middle Ages, the research of trigonometry continued in Islamic math, while it was implemented as a discrete subject in the Latin West beginning in the Renaissance with Regiomontanus. The growth of contemporary trigonometry shifted in the western Age of Enlightenment, starting with 17th-century math and reaching its contemporary type with Leonhard Euler (1748)
Etymology The word "trigonometry" originates from the Greek "trigonometria", implying "triangle measuring", from triangle + to measure. The name developed from the study of right triangles by applying the relation ships between the measures of its sides and angles to the
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