Scribd
Upload
67 views1 page

History of Trigonometry

Trigonometry originated in ancient Babylon and Egypt, with the oldest surviving evidence dating back to 1800 BCE. The ancient Greeks heavily contributed to trigonometry, building off previous works. By the medieval Islamic world, mathematicians were using the six main trigonometric functions still used today.

Uploaded by

Ana May Baniel
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
67 views1 page

History of Trigonometry

Trigonometry originated in ancient Babylon and Egypt, with the oldest surviving evidence dating back to 1800 BCE. The ancient Greeks heavily contributed to trigonometry, building off previous works. By the medieval Islamic world, mathematicians were using the six main trigonometric functions still used today.

Uploaded by

Ana May Baniel
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

Trigonometry traces its roots back to Ancient Babylon and Egypt.

This is because the


oldest surviving pieces of evidence for trigonometry are the Plimpton Tablet #322 and the
Rhind Mathematical Papyrus. The Plimpton Tablet dates from around 1800 BCE and
contains a table of Pythagorean triplets, or numbers that satisfy the sides of a right triangle
[1]. The Rhind Papyrus, dating from around 1550 BCE, features problems solving the slope
of a pyramid, called a Seked [2].

The Ancient Greeks heavily contributed to trigonometry, with Hipparchus, Menelaus,


and Ptolemy each living after one another and building off the chord tables of their
predecessors [3]. Originally, the side of a triangle in question would be called a chord
because it intercepted the arc of its corresponding angle. The Greeks were mostly
concerned with the sky and the heavens. Therefore, Trigonometry started by studying the
positions of the stars. Hipparchus is said to be the founder of Trigonometry, and Ptolemy
wrote the Almagest, an important work on the subject [4]. However, the first use of Sine
tables was recorded instead in India in the 6th century and spread back west [5]. By the
height of the Medieval Islamic World, mathematicians there were using the six
trigonometric functions we know today, namely, the Sine, Cosine, Tangent, Cosecant,
Secant, and Cotangent [6].

Works Cited:
1. Daniel F. Mansfield and N.J. Wildberger, "Plimpton 322 is Babylonian exact sexagesimal
trigonometry," Historia Mathematica 44, no. 4 (Aug. 2017):
395, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hm.2017.08.001.
2. Glen Van Brummelen, The Mathematics of the Heavens and the Earth: The Early History of
Trigonometry, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 11.
3. Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times, (New York, NY:
Oxford University Press, 1972), 119-122.
4. Ibid.
5. Van Brummelen, 95.
6. David M. Bressoud, “Historical Reflections on Teaching Trigonometry,” The Mathematics
Teacher 104, no. 2 (Sept. 2010): 110.

You might also like