BRIEF HISTORY OF TIGONOMETRY

It all began in Mesopotamia, specifically to Babylon, 2000 years before Christ. Astronomy was
commonly used for interpreting messages from heaven: astronomers were also intermediaries
between the king and gods. The Babylonians developed their math in hexadecimal base. The
circle was divided into four sections 90, or 360°. This hexadecimal system has reached us: the
dials of our clocks are still dimensioned according to a Babylonian base.

In the earliest times, when at sea all terrestrial landmarks had disappeared, the last means
available to mariners were the stars. Trigonometry was developed early in the history of
mankind, because it allowed a reading of heaven essential to navigation. As stated by Aristotle
and Ptolemy, the stars hung in the sphere of « fixed ». It could therefore be relied upon to keep
the North. Astronomers, sailors and architects were thus the first developers of this art of the
angles of the triangle.

Trigonometry did not stay very long limited to navigation. Soon, architects, engineers and
mathematicians quickly understood the interest of this new branch of geometry.
In the second century BC a Greek mathematician, Hipparchus, is thought to have been the first
person to produce a table for solving a triangle's lengths and angles.

Trigonometry was also prevalent in Kushite mathematics. Systematic study

of trigonometric functions began in Hellenistic mathematics, reaching India as part
of Hellenistic astronomy. In Indian astronomy, the study of trigonometric functions flourished in
the Gupta period, especially due to Aryabhata (sixth century CE), who discovered the sine
function.

During the Middle Ages, the study of trigonometry continued in Islamic mathematics, by
mathematicians such as Al-Khwarizmi and Abu al-Wafa. It became an independent discipline in
the Islamic world, where all six trigonometric functions were known.

Translations of Arabic and Greek texts led to trigonometry being adopted as a subject in the
Latin West beginning in the Renaissance with Regiomontanus. The development of modern
trigonometry shifted during the western Age of Enlightenment, beginning with 17th-century
mathematics (Isaac Newton and James Stirling) and reaching its modern form with Leonhard
Euler (1748).

The term “trigonometry,” although not of native Greek origin, comes from the Greek word
trigonon, meaning “triangle,” and the Greek word -metria, meaning “measurement.” As the
name implies, trigonometry ultimately developed from the study of right triangles by applying
the relationships between the measures of its sides and angles to the study of similar triangles
(Gullberg 458). However, the word “trigonometry” did not exist upon the birth of the subject,
but was later introduced by the German mathematician and astronomer, Bartholomaeus
Pitiscus in the title of his work, Trigonometria sive de solutione triangularum tractatus brevis et
perspicius…, published in 1595. It was then revised in 1600 and published again as
Trigonometria sive de dimensione triangulae. As far as the origin of the subject is concerned,
trigonometry and the development of trigonometric functions have a rich, diverse history.

Trigonometry is not the work of one man or a nation. In fact, the ancient Egyptians and
Babylonians had developed theorems on ratios of the sides of similar triangles (Boyer 158),
before trigonometry was ever formalized as a subdivision of mathematics. These two groups
had no clear usage of trigonometric functions but were able to use them unknowingly to their
advantage. Egyptians used trigonometry to their benefit in land surveying and the building of
pyramids. Babylonian astronomers related trigonometric functions to arcs of circles and the
lengths of chords subtending their arcs (Gullberg 458).

This is the outline of the history of trigonometry:

I. The Period before 1600
A. The Ancient Period (3100 B.C.-1 B.C.). Origins were astronomy, geometry and
surveying.
1. Babylonian (2000 B.C.-1 B.C.): records in cuneiform script on tablets on
tablets of about 2000 B.C.; tables of Pythagorean numbers, circumferences
of circles, equivalents of csc x for x from 31 degree to 45 degree; sexagesimal
system for angles with 360 degree in a circle.
2. Egyptian (2900 B.C.-1 B.C.): records in picture writing in Moscow papyrus
(1850 B.C.) and Rhind papyrus (1650 B.C.); great pyramid (2900 B.C.);
obelisks and timepieces (1850 B.C.); cotangents of pyramid angles; no
evidence of even a particular case of Pythagorean Theorem.
3. Chinese (probably contemporaneous with Babylon and Egypt): records
written on paper about 618 A.D. to 907 A.D. of period around 1112 B.C. to
256 B.C.; said to have divided (before 2285 B.C.) circle into 365 degrees;
established (2780 B.C.) length of year as 365 days (given the length 365 ¼
days sometime later); special cases (1100 B.C.) of Pythagorean theorem;
good estimate (1100 B.C.) of Obliquity of the Ecliptic by angles of elevation of
the Sun; handled proportions in sixth century.
4. Hindus (1500 B.C. – 600 A.D.): no pre-Christian records; special cases of
Pythagorean theorem; equivalent rectangles and squares, equivalent circles
and squares; fourth century table of sines for every 3.75 degrees up to 90
degrees computed by incorrect rule probably accurate enough for the times
(influenced Greeks to use sines instead of chords); knew sin 2 +cos 2 x=1.

B. The Greek and Roman Period (600 B.C. – 600 A.D.)

1. Thales (624 B.C. – 547 B.C.): measured heights of pyramids by shadow
reckoning, distance of ship from shore.
2. Pythagoras (569 B.C. – 500 B.C.) (Pythagorean School until 350 B.C.):
Pythagorean theorem; theory of portions for commensurable; approximated
the incommensurable√ 2.
3. Eudoxus (408 B.C. – 355 B.C.): theory of proportions 139

Name: Rita Mae Dinsay

Grade and Section: 9 – Robert Boyle