Trigonometry has always been the black sheep of mathematics. (Mathematical Mysteries).Too advanced to be part of elementary math, yet too elementary for the higher branches of the profession, it has been looked upon as a glorified glo·ri·fy tr.v. glo·ri·fied, glo·ri·fy·ing, glo·ri·fies 1. To give glory, honor, or high praise to; exalt. 2. form of geometry, complicated by tedious computation. Nothing could be further from the truth. Uniquely positioned as a meeting point between pure and applied mathematics, its rich history shows how different branches of science--among them geography, astronomy, and physics--and even music have influenced one another. In this book, Eli Maor rejects the usual, and descriptions of the sine and cosine cosine: see trigonometry. See sine. COSINE - Cooperation for Open Systems Interconnection Networking in Europe. A EUREKA project. functions and their trigonomics relatives. He brings the subjects to life in a compelling blend of mathematics, history, and biography. From the proto-trigonometry of the Egyptian pyramid builders to Renaissance Europe's quest for Verb 1. quest for - go in search of or hunt for; "pursue a hobby" quest after, go after, pursue look for, search, seek - try to locate or discover, or try to establish the existence of; "The police are searching for clues"; "They are searching for the more-accurate artillery; from the earliest known trigonometric table, carved on a clay tablet r76ir47i Small tablets made out of clay were used from 5500 BC hi! ]njasryTărtăria tablets and later from 4th millennium BC onwards as a writing medium in Sumerian, other Mesopotamian, Hittite, and Minoan/Mycenaean civilizations. by an unknown Babylonian scholar, to Fourier's famous theorem, which finally explained the source of musical harmony, here is a rich tapestry of almost 4,000 years of trigonometric history. The first part of the book assumes only high school algebra and trigonometry trigonometry [Gr.,=measurement of triangles], a specialized area of geometry concerned with the properties of and relations among the parts of a triangle. Spherical trigonometry is concerned with the study of triangles on the surface of a sphere rather than in the ; the second part uses some elementary calculus. Trigonometric Delights will change forever our view of this subject. --from Princeton University Press Princeton University Press, 1998, 236 p., 6 1/4" x 9 1/2", hardcover, $26.95 |
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