Trigonometry, the branch of mathematics concerned with specific functions of

angles and their application to calculations. There are six functions of an angle
commonly used in trigonometry. Their names and abbreviations are sine (sin),
cosine (cos), tangent (tan), cotangent (cot), secant (sec), and cosecant (cosec).
These six trigonometric functions in relation to a right triangle are displayed in the
figure. For example, the triangle contains an angle A, and the ratio of the side
opposite to A and the side opposite to the right angle (the hypotenuse) is called the
sine of A, or sin A; the other trigonometry functions are defined similarly. These
functions are properties of the angle A independent of the size of the triangle, and
calculated values were tabulated for many angles before computers made
trigonometry tables obsolete. Trigonometric functions are used in obtaining
unknown angles and distances from known or measured angles in geometric
figures.
Trigonometry developed from a need to compute angles and distances in such
fields as astronomy, map making, surveying, and artillery range finding. Problems
involving angles and distances in one plane are covered in plane trigonometry.
Applications to similar problems in more than one plane of three-dimensional
space are considered in spherical trigonometry.







Classical trigonometry
The word trigonometry comes from the Greek words trigonon (triangle) and
metron (to measure). Until about the 16th century, trigonometry was chiefly
concerned with computing the numerical values of the missing parts of a triangle
(or any shape that can be dissected into triangles) when the values of other parts
were given. For example, if the lengths of two sides of a triangle and the measure
of the enclosed angle are known, the third side and the two remaining angles can
be calculated. Such calculations distinguish trigonometry from geometry, which
mainly investigates qualitative relations. Of course, this distinction is not always
absolute: the Pythagorean theorem, for example, is a statement about the lengths of
the three sides in a right triangle and is thus quantitative in nature. Still, in its
original form, trigonometry was by and large an offspring of geometry; it was not
until the 16th century that the two became separate branches of mathematics.




Ancient Egypt and the Mediterranean world
Several ancient civilizationsin particular, the Egyptian, Babylonian, Hindu, and
Chinesepossessed a considerable knowledge of practical geometry, including
some concepts that were a prelude to trigonometry. Trigonometry in the modern
sense began with the Greeks. Hipparchus (c. 190120 bc) was the first to construct
a table of values for a trigonometric function. He considered every triangle
planar or sphericalas being inscribed in a circle, so that each side becomes a
chord .To compute the various parts of the triangle, one has to find the length of
each chord as a function of the central angle that subtends itor, equivalently, the
length of a chord as a function of the corresponding arc width. This became the
chief task of trigonometry for the next several centuries. As an astronomer,
Hipparchus was mainly interested in spherical triangles, such as the imaginary
triangle formed by three stars on the celestial sphere, but he was also familiar with
the basic formulas of plane trigonometry. In Hipparchuss time these formulas
were expressed in purely geometric terms as relations between the various chords
and the angles (or arcs) that subtend them; the modern symbols for the
trigonometric functions were not introduced until the 17th century. (See the table
of common trigonometry formulas.)
Ages was the Almagest by Ptolemy (c. ad 100170). He lived in Alexandria, the
intellectual centre of the Hellenistic world, but little else is known about him.
Although Ptolemy wrote works on mathematics, geography, and optics, he is
chiefly known for the Almagest, a 13-book compendium on astronomy that became
the basis for mankinds The first major ancient work on trigonometry to reach
Europe intact after the Dark world picture until the heliocentric system of Nicolaus
Copernicus began to supplant Ptolemys geocentric system in the mid-16th
century. In order to develop this world picturethe essence of which was a
stationary Earth around which the Sun, Moon, and the five known planets move in
circular orbitsPtolemy had to use some elementary trigonometry.


India and the Islamic world
The next major contribution to trigonometry came from India. In the sexagesimal
system, multiplication or division by 120 (twice 60) is analogous to multiplication
or division by 20 (twice 10) in the decimal system. The first table of sines is found
in the ryabhaya. Its author, ryabhaa I (c. 475550), used the word ardha-jya
for half-chord, which he sometimes turned around to jya-ardha (chord-half); in
due time he shortened it to jya or jiva. Later, when Muslim scholars translated this
work into Arabic, they retained the word jiva without translating its meaning. In
Semitic languages words consist mostly of consonants, the pronunciation of the
missing vowels being understood by common usage. Thus jiva could also be
pronounced as jiba or jaib, and this last word in Arabic means fold or bay.
When the Arab translation was later translated into Latin, jaib became sinus, the
Latin word for bay. The word sinus first appeared in the writings of Gherardo of
Cremona (c. 111487), who translated many of the Greek texts, including the
Almagest, into Latin. Other writers followed, and soon the word sinus, or sine, was
used in the mathematical literature throughout Europe. The abbreviated symbol sin
was first used in 1624 by Edmund Gunter, an English minister and instrument
maker. The notations for the five remaining trigonometric functions were
introduced shortly thereafter.
Passage to Europe
Until the 16th century it was chiefly spherical trigonometry that interested
scholarsa consequence of the predominance of astronomy among the natural
sciences. Several Arab scholars, notably Nar al-Dn al-s (120174) and al-
Bttni, continued to develop spherical trigonometry and brought it to its present
form. s was the first (c. 1250) to write a work on trigonometry independently of
astronomy. But the first modern book devoted entirely to trigonometry appeared in
the Bavarian city of Nrnberg in 1533 under the title On Triangles of Every Kind.
Its author was the astronomer Regiomontanus (143676). On Triangles contains all
the theorems needed to solve triangles, planar or sphericalalthough these
theorems are expressed in verbal form, as symbolic algebra had yet to be invented.
In particular, the law of sines is stated in essentially the modern way.


On Triangles was greatly admired by future generations of scientists.The
astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (14731543) studied it thoroughly, and his
annotated copy survives.
The final major development in classical trigonometry was the invention of
logarithms by the Scottish mathematician John Napier in 1614. His tables of
logarithms greatly facilitated the art of numerical computationincluding the
compilation of trigonometry tablesand were hailed as one of the greatest
contributions to science.











Aryabhata I, also called Aryabhata the Elder
,astronomer and the earliest Indian mathematician
whose work and history are available to modern
scholars. Known as Aryabhata I or Aryabhata the
Elder to distinguish him from a 10th-century Indian
mathematician of the same name, he flourished in
Kusumapuranear Patalipurta (Patna), then the
capital of the Gupta dynastywhere he composed
at least two works, Aryabhatiya and the now lost
Aryabhatasiddhanta.
In Ganita Aryabhata names the first 10 decimal
places and gives algorithms for obtaining square
and cubic roots, utilizing the decimal number
system. Then he treats geometric measurements
employing 62,832/20,000 (= 3.1416) for and
develops properties of similar right-angled triangles
and of two intersecting circles. Utilizing the
Pythagorean theorem, he obtained one of the two
methods for constructing his table of sines. He also
realized that second-order sine difference is
proportional to sine.








Hipparchus of Nicaea (190 c. 120 BC), was a
Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician
of the Hellenistic period. He is considered the
founder of trigonometry but is most famous for his
incidental discovery of precession of the equinoxes.
He defined the chord function, derived some of its
properties and constructed a table of chords for
angles that are multiples of 7.5 using a circle of
radius R = 60 360/(2).This his motivation for
choosing this value of R. In this circle, the
circumference is 360 times 60. Therefore, the
length of the arc of a sector equals the angle of the
sector measuredin minutes.Hipparchus used crd
and crd (180 ) as his trigonometric functions.





Menelaus of Alexandria wrote Chords in a Circle
consisting of six books which contain many
advances in spherical geometry and some of the
basic formulas used to solve spherical triangles.

Here are three of his results.
1. The sum of two sides of a spherical triangle is
greater than the third side while the sum of its
angles is greater than 180.

2. If two spherical triangles have the same angles,
then they are congruent.

3.Menelaus Theorem was used by the Greeks to
prove the identities