Who invented trigonometry sine and cosine

Jan 1, AD Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi developes the first table of cotangent values of certain angle measurements. AD The indian mathematician uses what will become to be known as Taylor series expansions to produce the values of trigonometric functions with a new record of accuracy. This makes Hipparchus the founder of trigonometry.

The next Greek mathematician to produce a table of chords was Menelaus in about AD. Menelaus worked in Rome producing six books of tables of chords which have been lost but his work on spherics has survived and is the earliest known work on spherical trigonometry. References show. 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]. This exhibit was created by a USU student. Turner's Compendium: History of Trigonometry. The equator is represented by the horizontal straight line running through the star chart, while the ecliptic curves above it.

The oldest star map found so far is from Dunhuang. Earlier thought to date from about CE, it was made with precise mathematical methods by the astronomer and mathematician Li Chunfeng and shows stars in Chinese star groups with a precision between 1. In all there are 12 charts each in 30 degree sections displaying the full sky visible from the Northern hemisphere. Up to now it is the oldest complete preserved star atlas discovered from any civilisation.

It has been on display this year in the British Library to celebrate as the International Year of Astronomy. Later, during the period CE a number of Indian astronomers came to live in China and Islamic astronomers collaborated closely with their Chinese counterparts particularly during Very little of the knowledge of the Indians and the Chinese was known in Europe before the Portuguese navigators and the Jesuit scientist Matteo Ricci in the fifteenth century. Babylonian astronomy contributed direct empirical data as a foundation for Greek theory and exactly the same data which provided the information for the "zig-zag" data results in Babylonian theory were used to calculate the mean motions of the sun and moon by Hipparchus.

Pedagogical notes to support this article can be found in the Teachers' Notes accompanying this resource. Explanations for some of the astronomical terms used in this article can be found here. Part 2 of the History of Trigonometry will take you from Eudoxus to Ptolemy. Katz, V. New York. Addison Wesley. Recommended as the best general history of mathematics currently available. There is good coverage of aspects of astronomy in antiquity, and the discussion on 'functions' p. Princeton University Press.

This book contains a wealth of up-to-date information on mathematics and some aspects of astronomy in these ancient civilisations. Linton, C. Cambridge University Press The first chapter deals with ancient people and early Greek astronomy. Needham, J. Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Cambridge University Press. Neugebauer, O. Springer-Verlag These two books are the big classics on China and Mesopotamia, but much work has been done in these areas since the s.

Dover Books. Still available, this is a more popular book and contains much information on Egypt, Babylon and Greek Science.