Spherical trigonometry

Spherical trigonometry is that branch of spherical geometry which deals with the relationships
between trigonometric functions of the sides and angles of the spherical polygons (especially
spherical triangles) defined by a number of intersecting great circles on the sphere. Spherical
trigonometry is of great importance for calculations in astronomy, geodesy and navigation.
The origins of spherical trigonometry in Greek mathematics and the major developments in
Islamic mathematics are discussed fully in History of trigonometry and Mathematics in medieval
Islam. The subject came to fruition in Early Modern times with important developments by John
Napier, Delambre and others, and attained an essentially complete form by the end of the
nineteenth century with the publication of Todhunter's text book Spherical trigonometry for the
use of colleges and Schools. This book is now readily available on the web.
[1]
The only
significant developments since then have been the application of vector methods for the
derivation of the theorems and the use of computers to carry through lengthy calculations.
Comment: this article is best viewed with Preference->Appearance->mathJax.
Preliminaries


Eight spherical triangles defined by the intersection of three great circles.
Spherical polygons
A spherical polygon on the surface of the sphere is defined by a number of great circle arcs
which are the intersection of the surface with planes through the centre of the sphere. Such
polygons may have any number of sides. Two planes define a lune, also called a "digon" or bi-
angle, the two-sided analogue of the triangle: a familiar example is the curved surface of a
segment of an orange. Three planes define a spherical triangle, the principal subject of this
article. Four planes define a spherical quadrilateral: such a figure, and higher sided polygons, can
always be treated as a number of spherical triangles.
From this point the article will be restricted to spherical triangles, denoted simply as triangles.
Notation


The basic triangle on a unit sphere.
Both vertices and angles at the vertices are denoted by the same upper case letters A, B
and C.
The angles A, B, C of the triangle are equal to the angles between the planes which
intersect the surface of the sphere or, equivalently, the angles between the tangent vectors
of the great circle arcs where they meet at the vertices. Angles are in radians. The angles
of proper spherical triangles are (by convention) less than so that < A + B + C<3.
(Todhunter,
[1]
Art.22,32).
The radius of the sphere is taken as unity.
The sides are denoted by lower-case letters a, b, c. On the unit sphere their lengths are
numerically equal to the radian measure of the angles that the great circle arcs subtend at
the centre. The sides of proper spherical triangles are (by convention) less than so that
0 < a + b + c<3. (Todhunter,
[1]
Art.22,32). For specific practical problems on a sphere of
radius R the measured lengths of the sides must be divided by R before using the
identities given below. Likewise, after a calculation on the unit sphere the sides a, b, c
must be multiplied by R.
Polar triangles


The polar triangle A'B'C'
The polar triangle associated with a triangle ABC is defined as follows. Consider the great circle
which contains the side BC. This great circle is defined by the intersection of a diametral plane
with the surface. Draw the normal to that plane at the centre: it intersects the surface at two
points and the point which is on the same side of the plane as A is (conventionally) termed the
pole of A and it is denoted by A'. The points B' and C' are defined similarly.
The triangle A'B'C' is the polar triangle corresponding to triangle ABC. A very important
theorem (Todhunter,
[1]
Art.27) proves that the angles and sides of the polar triangle are given by

Therefore, if any identity is proved for the triangle ABC then we we can immediately derive a
second identity by applying the first identity to the polar triangle by making the above
substitutions. This is how the supplemental cosine equations are derived from the cosine
equations. Similarly, the identities for a quadrantal triangle can be derived from those for a right-
angled triangle. The polar triangle of a polar triangle is the original triangle.
Cosine rules and sine rules
Cosine rules
The cosine rule is the fundamental identity of spherical trigonometry: all other identities,
including the sine rule, may be derived from the cosine rule.



These identities reduce to the cosine rule of plane trigonometry in the limit of sides much smaller
than the radius of the sphere. (On the unit sphere a, b, c<<1: set and
etc. See Spherical law of cosines.)
Sine rules

These identities reduce to the sine rule of plane trigonometry in the limit of small sides.
Derivation of the cosine rule


The spherical cosine formulae were originally proved by elementary geometry and the planar
cosine rule (Todhunter,
[1]
Art.37). He also gives a derivation using simple coordinate geometry
and the planar cosine rule (Art.60). The approach outlined here uses simpler vector methods.
(These methods are also discussed at Spherical law of cosines.)
Consider three unit vectors OA, OB and OC drawn from the origin to the vertices of the triangle
(on the unit sphere). The arc BC subtends an angle of magnitude a at the centre and therefore
OB.OC=cos a. Introduce a Cartesian basis with OA along the z-axis and OB in the xz-plane
making an angle c with the z-axis. The vector OC projects to ON in the xy-plane and the angle
between ON and the x-axis is A. Therefore the three vectors have components:
OA OB OC .
The scalar product OB.OC in terms of the components is
OB.OC = .
Equating the two expressions for the scalar product gives

This equation can be re-arranged to give explicit expressions for the angle in terms of the sides:

The other cosine rules are obtained by cyclic permutations.
Derivation of the sine rule
This derivation is given in Todhunter,
[1]
(Art.40). From the identity and
the explicit expression for given immediately above

Since the right hand side is invariant under a cyclic permutation of the spherical sine
rule follows immediately.
Identities
Supplemental cosine rules
Applying the cosine rules to the polar triangle gives (Todhunter,
[1]
Art.47), that is replace A by -
a, a by -A etc.,



Cotangent four-part formulae
The six elements of a triangle may be written in cyclic order as (aCbAcB). The cotangent, or
four-part, formulae relate two sides and two angles forming four consecutive elements around the
triangle, for example (aCbA) or (BaCb). In such a set there are inner and outer elements: for
example in the set (BaCb) the inner angle is C, the inner side is a, the outer angle is B, the outer
side is b. The cotangent rule may be written as (Todhunter,
[1]
Art.48)

and the six possible equations are (with the relevant set shown at right):

To prove the first formula start from the first cosine rule and on the right-hand side substitute for
from the third cosine rule:

The result follows on dividing by . Similar techniques with the other two cosine
rules give CT3 and CT5. The other three equations follow by applying the rules to the polar
triangle.
Half-angle and half-side formulae
With and ,

Another 12 identities follow by cyclic permutation.
The proof (Todhunter,
[1]
Art.49) of the first formula starts from the identity
, using the cosine rule to express A in terms of the sides and
replacing the sum of two cosines by a product. (See sum-to-product identities.) The second
formula starts from the identity , the third is a quotient and the
remainder follow by applying the results to the polar triangle.
Delambre (or Gauss) analogies

Another 8 identities follow by cyclic permutation.
Proved by expanding the numerators and using the half angle formulae. (Todhunter,
[1]
Art.54 and
Delambre
[2]
)
Napier's analogies

Another 8 identities follow by cyclic permutation.
Proved here by dividing the Delambre formulae. (Todhunter,
[1]
Art.52)
Napier's rules for right spherical triangles


When one of the angles, say C, of a spherical triangle is equal to /2 the various identities given
above are considerably simplified. There are ten identities relating three elements chosen from
the set a, b, c, A, B.
Napier
[3]
provided an elegant mnemonic aid for the ten independent equations: the mnemonic is
called Napier's circle or Napier's pentagon (when the circle in the above figure, right, is replaced
by a pentagon).
First write in a circle the six angles of the triangle (three vertex angles, three arc angles for the
sides): for the triangle shown above left this gives aCbAcB. Next replace the angles which are
not adjacent to C (that is A, c, B) by their complements and then delete the angle C from the list.
The remaining elements are as shown in the above figure, right. For any choice of three
contiguous sectors of the circle, one (the middle angle) will be adjacent to two angles and
opposite the other two angles. The ten Napier's Rules are given by
sine of the middle part = the product of the tangents of the adjacent angles
sine of the middle part = the product of the cosines of the opposite angles
For an example, starting with the sector containing we have:

The full set of rules for the right spherical triangle is (Todhunter,
[1]
Art.62)

Napier's rules for quadrantal triangles


A quadrantal spherical triangle together with Napier's circle for use in his mnemonics
When one of the sides, say c, of a spherical triangle is equal to /2 the corresponding equations
are obtained by applying the above rules to the polar triangle. A'B'C' with sides a',b',c' such that
A'=-a, a=-A etc. This gives the following equations:

Five-part rules
Substituting the second cosine rule into the first and simplifying gives:


Cancelling the factor of gives

Similar substitutions in the other cosine and supplementary cosine formulae give a large variety
of 5-part rules. They are rarely used.
Solution of triangles
Main article: Solution of triangles#Solving spherical triangles
Oblique triangles
The solution of triangles is the principal purpose of spherical trigonometry: given three, four or
five elements of the triangle determine the remainder. The case of five given elements is trivial,
requiring only a single application of the sine rule. For four given elements there is one non-
trivial case which is discussed below. For three given elements there are six cases: three sides,
two sides and an included or opposite angle, two angles and an included or opposite side, or
three angles. (The last case has no analogue in planar trigonometry.) No single method solves all
cases. The figure below shows the seven non-trivial cases: in each case the given sides are
marked with a cross-bar and the given angles with an arc. (The given elements are also listed
below the triangle). There is a full discussion of the solution of oblique triangles in Todhunter
[1]

(ChapterVI).


Case 1: three sides given. The cosine rule gives A, B, and C.
Case 2: two sides and an included angle given. The cosine rule gives a and then we are
back to Case 1.
Case 3: two sides and an opposite angle given. The sine rule gives C and then we have
Case 7. There are either one or two solutions.
Case 4: two angles and an included side given. The four-part cotangent formulae for
sets (cBaC) and (BaCb) give c and b, then A follows from the sine rule.
Case 5: two angles and an opposite side given. The sine rule gives b and then we have
Case 7 (rotated). There are either one or two solutions.
Case 6: three angles given. The supplemental cosine rule gives a, b, and c.
Case 7: two angles and sides as shown. Use Napier's analogies for a and A.
The solution methods listed here are not the only possible choices: many others are possible. In
general it is better to choose methods that avoid taking an inverse sine because of the possible
ambiguity between an angle and its supplement. The use of half-angle formulae is often
advisable because half-angles will be less than /2 and therefore free from ambiguity. There is a
full discussion in Todhunter. The solution of triangles article presents variants on these methods
with a slightly different notation.


Solution by right-angled triangles
Another approach is to split the triangle into two right-angled triangles. For example take the
Case 3 example where b, c, B are given. Construct the great circle from A which is normal to the
side BC at the point D. Use Napier's rules to solve the triangle ABD: use c and B to find the sides
AD, BD and the angle BAD. Then use Napier's rules to solve the triangle ACD: that is use AD
and b to find the side DC and the angles C and DAC. The angle A and side a follow by addition.
Numerical considerations
Not all of the rules obtained are numerically robust in extreme examples, for example when an
angle approaches zero or . Problems and solutions may have to be examined carefully,
particularly when writing code to solve an arbitrary triangle.
Area and spherical excess
This section considers n-sided spherical polygons as well as spherical triangles. Let denote the
sum of the interior angles of such a polygon on the unit sphere. Then the area of the polygon is
given by (Todhunter,
[1]
Art.99)

For the case of triangle

where E is the amount by which the sum of the angles exceeds radians. The quantity E is called
the spherical excess. This theorem is named after its author (for the circle) Albert Girard.
[4]
An
earlier proof was derived, but not published, by the English mathematician Thomas Harriot. The
converse result may be written as

On a sphere of radius R both of the above results are multiplied by R
2
. The definition of the
excess is independent of the radius of the sphere.
Since the area of a triangle cannot be negative the spherical excess is always positive. Note that it
is not necessarily small since the sum of the angles may attain 3. For example, an octant of a
sphere is a spherical triangle with three right angles, so that the excess is /2. In practical
applications it is often small: for example the triangles of geodetic survey typically have a
spherical excess much less than 1' of arc. (Rapp
[5]
Clarke,
[6]
Legendre's theorem on spherical
triangles). On the Earth the excess of an equilateral triangle with sides 21.3 km (and area
393 km
2
) is approximately 1 arc second.
There are many formulae for the excess. For example Todhunter,
[1]
(Art.101103) gives ten
examples including that of L'Huilier:

where . Because some triangles are badly characterized by their edges
(e.g., if ), it is often better to use the formula for the excess in terms of two edges
and their included angle

An example for a spherical quadrangle bounded by a segment of a great circle, two meridians,
and the equator is

where denote latitude and longitude. This result is obtained from one of Napier's analogies.
In the limit where are all small, this reduces to the familiar trapezoidal area,
.
Angle deficit is defined similarly for hyperbolic geometry.