- #1
JyN
- 28
- 2
I am a first year engineering student and i am starting to really understand/be very interested in math. I have started proving random theorems after being intrigued by things in class and am really appreciating things like the fundamental theorem of calculus.
I am very curios about how trigonometry is derived. How do u come to create a function like sine or cosine? I can see the importance of arc length and the pythagorean theorem, but i can't make the leap from there to being able to get the sine function, and to be able to determine the actual values of sin a, or cos b etc... Google searches havn't given me much either. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
EDIT: i should also be clear that i am not interested in the history, or the people that actually did this. I am interested in being able to start with very little, and know how to discover all of basic trigonometry as we know it today.
I am very curios about how trigonometry is derived. How do u come to create a function like sine or cosine? I can see the importance of arc length and the pythagorean theorem, but i can't make the leap from there to being able to get the sine function, and to be able to determine the actual values of sin a, or cos b etc... Google searches havn't given me much either. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
EDIT: i should also be clear that i am not interested in the history, or the people that actually did this. I am interested in being able to start with very little, and know how to discover all of basic trigonometry as we know it today.
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