mathematics

"Now, it is worth remarking, that this property of the table of sines, which has been so long known in the East, was not observed by the mathematicians of Europe till about two hundred years ago […] If we were not already acquainted withthe high antiquity of the astronomy of Hindostan, nothing could appear more singular than to find a system of trigonometry, so perfect in its principles, in a book so ancient as the Surya Siddhanta […]’ ‘In the progress of science […] the invention of trigonometry is to be considered as a step of great importance, and of considerable difficulty. It is an application of arithmetic to geometry […] (and) a little reflection will convince us, that he, who first formed the idea of exhibiting, in arithmetical tables, the ratios of the sides and angles of all possible triangles, and contrived the means of constructing such tables, must have been a man of profound thought, and of extensive knowledge. However, ancient, therefore, any book may be, in which we meet with a system of trigonometry, we may be assured, that it was not written in the infancy of science.’ ‘As we cannot, therefore, suppose the art of trigonometrical calculation to have been introduced till after a long preparation of other acquisitions, both geometrical and astronomical, we must reckon far back from the date of the Surya Siddhanta, before we come to the origin of the mathematical sciences in India […] Even among the Greeks […] an interval, of at least 1000 years, elapsed from the first observations in astronomy, to the invention of trigonometry; and we have surely no reason to suppose, that the progress of knowledge has been more rapid in other countries."

"Why should the typical student be interested in those wretched triangles? ...He is to be brought to see that without the knowledge of triangles there is not trigonometry; that without trigonometry we put back the clock millennia to Standard Darkness Time and antedate the Greeks."

"After Apollonius Greek mathematics came to a dead stop. It is true that there were some epigones, such as Diocles and Zenodorus... But apart from trigonometry, nothing great nothing new appeared. The geometry of the conics remained in the form Apollonius gave it, until Descartes. ...The "Method" of Archimedes was lost sight of, and the problem of integration remained where it was, until it was attacked anew in the 17th century... Germs of projective geometry were present, but it remained for Desargues and Pascal to bring these to fruition. ...Higher plane curves were studied only sporadically... Geometric algebra and the theory of proportions were carried over into modern times as inert traditions, of which the inner meaning was no longer understood. The Arabs started algebra anew, from a much more primitive point of view... Greek geometry had run into a blind alley."

"The British mathematicians have been the greatest, nay... the only improvers of Trigonometry within these two centuries. ...[N]ot to mention the extraordinary inventions of Lord Neper... nor the analogies, wherein sines and tangents of half-arches are used, nor the applications of Trigonometry to of the sphere, for all which we are indebted... the very words of Trigonometry, cosine, cotangent, &c. have been first used by the writers of that nation."

"From what have proceeded disputes in Spherical Trigonometry, not solved either by Cunn, or Ham, but from the inaccurate notion of a supplemental triangle?"

"[T]o what can this be owing, but to the want of sufficient principles, the neglect of enumerating and distinguishing: cases of a proposition, and the inattention to rendering the subject as complete as possible?"

"[T]he reason, why in Algebra and Fluxions, expressions for trigonometrical lines always run out into infinite series... is because the number of arches, to which any one of such lines belongs is always infinite."

"Prop. 14. and its corollaries deserve... examination. It is hard to say, by whom they were invented, though... probably by the English; and perhaps corr. 3 & 2. of prop. 29. in spherics, have given rise to them all, as they are to be found in most books of the last age. They are all to be seen in Caswell... Wallace, Newton Univ. Arithm. Geom. Probl. 11. Thos. Simpsons Algebra, Geom. Probl. 15. Dr. Robertsons Navigation, Emerson, and [Benjamin] Martin. The analogy of the prop. in particular, is to be met with in Trigonometria Britannica, [Henry] Sherwins Tables, de la Caille, Dr. Simpson, and Ward."

"The whole doctrine of axes and poles is to this day both incomplete and inaccurate. The authors endeavoured to their utmost, to remedy such extraordinary defects in so important a subject. ...In truth, the subject of poles of circles, as it is laid down here, seems exhausted: several of their properties are exhibited, over and above those in Theodosius's Spherics, and Dr. Barrow's additions thereto; and this is done in a lesser number of lines, than they have pages."

"In prop. 5. and cor. the confused and inaccurate ideas of arches being measures of angles, of arches being equal to angles, and of arches being the supplements and complements of angles, and v. v. so much prevailing even among the best geometricians, are attempted to be rectified: for it is manifest enough, that nothing can be a measure of another thing, or equal to it, or a supplement and complement of it, unless it be homogeneous with it. For want of such a plain consideration, and afterwards most probably from habit, people have debased many propositions, both in their enunciations and demonstrations; and often it is not without some trouble that they are corrected."

"It is from the vagueness of the proposition... and from misunderstanding the terms supplement and complement, that disputes have arisen in spherics: these may be seen at the end of [Samuel] Cunns Euclid, in his remarks and the appendix. Whatever be the mistakes of Mr. Heynes... the respectable names of Dr. Keil, Mr. Caswell, and Dr. Harris, whom Mr. Cunn joins in company with Heynes, are treated by him... injuriously; especially as he himself had not examined his subject with sufficient attention. His own rule... is indeed true... but it is more troublesome to the memory. Mr. Ham... awards his own rule, which, notwithstanding, is much more unmanageable... it using subtraction of natural versed sines, to whose difference therefore (and every one knows the thing is not easy) logarithms are to be accommodated. But it were time, long ago, to bury these worthless disputes in oblivion, that learners of spherics should not be discouraged by seeing them printed and reprinted so often."

"Of prop. 10. no one gives an accurate demonstration, except Menelaus : Dr. Keil's need not be mentioned, and Dr. Simpson's leaves out a case, and is at the same time very prolix. That which is offered here... seems remarkably short and easy, and is derived from Dr. Simpsons Elements of Euclid, Book XI. prop. A. ...[H]e is... to be praised for his merits in his... Euclid; but... there are still many inaccuracies..."

"Archimedes... work... The following is a fair specimen of the questions considered. A solid in the shape of a paraboloid of revolution of height h and latus rectum 4a floats in water, with its vertex immersed and its base wholly above the surface. If equilibrium be possible when the axis is not vertical, then the density of the body must be less than (h - 3a)^2/h^2 (book II. prop. 4). When it is recollected that Archimedes was unacquainted with trigonometry or analytical geometry, the fact that he could discover and prove a proposition such as that... will serve as an illustration of his powers of analysis."

"The Mathematics of the Renaissance... Mathematicians had barely assimilated the knowledge obtained from the Arabs, including their translations of Greek writers, when the refugees who escaped from Constantinople after the fall of the eastern empire brought the original works and the traditions of Greek science into Italy. Thus by the middle of the fifteenth century the chief results of Greek and Arabian mathematics were accessible to European students. The invention of printing about that time rendered the dissemination of discoveries comparatively easy. ...[W]hen a mediaeval writer "published" ... the results were known to only a few of his contemporaries. This had not been the case in classical times for... until the fourth century of our era Alexandria was the... centre for the reception and dissemination of new works and discoveries. In mediaeval Europe... there was no common centre through which men of science could communicate with one another, and to this cause the slow and fitful development of mediaeval mathematics may be partly ascribed. The last two centuries of this period... described as the renaissance, were distinguished by great mental activity in all branches of learning. The creation of a fresh group of universities... testify to the... desire for knowledge. The discovery of America in 1492 and the discussions that preceded the Reformation flooded Europe with new ideas... ut the advance in mathematics was at least as well marked as that in literature and... politics. During the first part of this time the attention of mathematicians was to a large extent concentrated on syncopated algebra and trigonometry."

"Bhaskara, ... there is every reason to believe ...was familiar, with the works of the Arab school... and... that his writings were... known in Arabia."

"was among the first to take advantage of the recovery of the original texts of the Greek mathematical works... the earliest notice in modern Europe of the algebra of Diophantus is [his] remark... that he had seen a copy... at the Vatican. He was also well read in the works of the Arab mathematicians. The fruit of this study... his De Triangulis... 1464... the earliest modern systematic exposition of trigonometry, plane and spherical, though the only trigonometrical functions introduced are... the sine and cosine. It is divided into five books. The first four... plane trigonometry... in particular... determining triangles from three given conditions. The fifth book is... spherical trigonometry. The work was printed in five volumes... 1533, nearly a century after the death of Regiomontanus."

"Bhaskara... is said to have been... lineal successor of Brahmagupta as head of an astronomical observatory at Ujein... sometimes written Ujjayini. He wrote an astronomy... Lilavati is on arithmetic... Bija Ganita is on algebra; the third and fourth... on astronomy and the sphere... [I]t is... probable that Bhaskara was acquainted with... Arab works... written in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and with... Greek mathematics... transmitted through Arabian sources. ...[F]rom the ...table of contents ...Arithmetical progressions, and sums of squares and cubes. Geometrical progressions. Problems on triangles and quadrilaterals. Approximate value of π. Some trigonometrical formulae. ..[T]he book ends with a few questions on combinations. This is the earliest known work which contains a systematic exposition of the decimal system of numeration. ...Chapters on algebra, trigonometry, and geometrical applications exist, and fragments of them have been translated by Colebrooke. Amongst the trigonometrical formulae is one... equivalent to... d (\sin \theta) = \cos \theta d \theta."

"Like the Greeks, the Arabs never used trigonometry except... with astronomy; but they introduced the trigonometrical expressions... now current, and worked out the plane trigonometry of a single angle. They were also acquainted with the elements of spherical trigonometry."

"The Arab schools continued to flourish until the fifteenth century... [T]he work of the Arabs in arithmetic, algebra, and trigonometry was of a high order of excellence. They appreciated geometry and the applications of geometry to astronomy, but they did not extend the bounds of the science."

"[A]lgebra and trigonometry were still only in the rhetorical stage of development, and when every step of the argument is expressed in words at full length it is by no means easy to realise all that is contained in a formula."

"The idea of excentrics and epicycles on which the theories of Hipparchus and Ptolemy are based has been often ridiculed... But De Morgan has acutely observed that in so far as the ancient astronomers supposed that it was necessary to resolve every celestial motion into a series of uniform circular motions they erred greatly... as a convenient way of expressing known facts, it is not only legitimate but convenient. It was as good a theory as with their instruments and knowledge it was possible to frame, and... it exactly corresponds to the expression of a given function as a sum of sines or cosines, a method... of frequent use in... analysis."

"Ptolemy made observations at Alexandria from the years 125 to 150... .but an indifferent practical astronomer, and the observations of Hipparchus are... more accurate..."

"Ptolemy had shewn... geometry could be applied to astronomy, but... indicated how new methods of analysis like trigonometry might be... developed. He found however no successors to take up the work he had commenced so brilliantly, and we must look forward 150 years before we find another geometrician of any eminence... Pappus..."

"The third century before Christ, which opens with... Euclid and closes with the death of Apollonius, is the most brilliant era in the history of Greek mathematics. But the great mathematicians of that century were geometricians... It was not till after... nearly 1800 years that the genius of Descartes opened the way to any further progress in geometry... [R]oughly... during the next thousand years Pappus was the sole geometrician of great ability; and... almost the only other pure mathematicians of exceptional genius were Hipparchus and Ptolemy who laid the foundations of trigonometry, and Diophantus who laid those of algebra."

"Arab missionaries who had come to China in the course of the thirteenth century, and while there introduced a knowledge of spherical trigonometry."

"The work is divided into thirteen books. ...[T]he first... treats of trigonometry, plane and spherical; gives a table of chords, i.e. of natural sines (... substantially correct and... probably taken from... Hipparchus); and explains the obliquity of the ecliptic... It became... the standard authority on astronomy, and remained so till Copernicus and Kepler shewed that the sun and not the earth must be... the centre of the solar system."

"Pappus wrote several books, but... only one which has come down to us is his Συναγωγή [Synagoge], a collection of mathematical papers... in eight books of which... part... have been lost... published by F. Hultsch... 1876—8. This collection was intended to be a synopsis of Greek mathematics... with comments and additional propositions... we rely largely on it for... knowledge of... works now lost. ...[T]he sixth [book deals] with astronomy including, as subsidiary subjects, optics and trigonometry ...His work... and... comments shew... he was a geometrician of great power; but it was his misfortune to live at a time when but little interest was taken in geometry, and... the subject, as then treated, had been practically exhausted."

"The earliest Moorish writer of distinction... is Geber ibn Aphla... His works... chiefly... astronomy and trigonometry, were translated into Latin by Gerard... 1533. He seems to have discovered the theorem that the sines of the angles of a spherical triangle are proportional to the sines of the opposite sides."

"Regiomontanus did not hesitate to apply algebra to the solution of geometrical problems. An... illustration of this is to be found in his discussion of a question... in ’s Siddhanta... to construct a quadrilateral, having its sides of given lengths, which should be inscribable in a circle. The solution given by Regiomontanus was effected by means of algebra and trigonometry: this was published by C. G. von Murr... 1786."

"Ptolemy’s great treatise, the '... was founded on the observations and writings of Hipparchus, and from the notes there given we infer that the chief discoveries of Hipparchus, and from the notes there... we infer that the chief discoveries of Hipparchus... [H]is observations and calculations... placed the subject for the first time on a scientific basis. ...[His] theory accounted for all the facts which could be determined with the instruments then in use, and... enabled him to calculate... eclipses with considerable accuracy. ...No further advance in the theory of astronomy was made until the time of Copernicus, though the principles laid down by Hipparchus were extended and worked out in detail by Ptolemy. Investigations such as these naturally led to trigonometry, and Hipparchus must be credited with the invention of that subject. ...[I]n plane trigonometry he constructed a table of chords of arcs... practically the same as... natural sines; and... in spherical trigonometry he had some method of solving triangles: but his works are lost, and we can give no details."

"Ahmes gives some problems on pyramids. ...Ahmes was attempting to find, by means of data obtained from the measurement of the external dimensions of a building, the ratio of certain other dimensions which could not be directly measured: his process is equivalent to determining the trigonometrical ratios of certain angles. The data and the results given agree closely with the dimensions of some of the existing pyramids. Perhaps all Ahmes's geometrical results were intended only as approximations correct enough for practical purposes."

"Ahmes then goes on to find the area of a circular field … and gives the result as (d - 1/9d)2, where d is the diameter of the circle: this is equivalent to taking 3.1604 as the value of π, the actual value being very approximately 3.1416."

"'... placed engineering and land surveying on a scientific basis. ...He was ...acquainted with the trigonometry of Hipparchus, but ...nowhere quotes a formula or expressly uses the value of the sine, and it is probable that like the later Greeks he regarded trigonometry as forming an introduction to, and being an integral part of, astronomy."

"It is believed... that the elegant theorem, printed as Euc. VI. D... known as Ptolemy’s Theorem, is due to Hipparchus and was copied... by Ptolemy. It contains implicitly the addition formulæ for sin (A \pm B) and cos(A \pm B); and Carnot shewed how the whole of elementary plane trigonometry could be deduced from it."

"Ptolemy... produced his great work on astronomy, which will preserve his name as long as the history of science endures. This... is... the '...founded on the writings of Hipparchus, and, though it did not... advance the theory... it presents the views of the older writer with a completeness and elegance which will always make it a standard treatise."

"[T]hroughout the first century after Christ... the only original works of any ability were... by Serenus and... Menelaus. ...Those by Serenus... were on the plane sections of the cone and cylinder... edited by E. Halley... 1710. That by Menelaus... was on spherical trigonometry, investigated in the Euclidean method... translated by E. Halley... 1758. The fundamental theorem... is the relation between the six segments of the sides of a spherical triangle, formed by the arc of a great circle which cuts them (book III. prop. 1). Menelaus also wrote on the calculation of chords... plane trigonometry; this is lost."

"The Mathematics of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance... begins about the sixth century, and may be said to end with the invention of analytical geometry and infinitesimal calculus. The characteristic feature of this period is the creation of modern arithmetic, algebra, and trigonometry."

"Isaac Argyrus... wrote three astronomical tracts... one on ... one on geometry... and one on trigonometry, the manuscript of which is in the Bodleian at Oxford."

"Arya-Bhata... is frequently quoted by , and... many commentators [write that] he created algebraic analysis though it has been suggested that he may have seen Diophantus’s Arithmetic. ...[H]is Aryabhathiya... consists of the enunciations of... rules and propositions... in verse. There are no proofs, and the language is... obscure and concise... [I]t long defied all efforts to translate it. The book is divided into four parts: of these three are devoted to astronomy and the elements of spherical trigonometry; the remaining part... enunciations of thirty-three rules in arithmetic, algebra, and plane trigonometry. It is probable that Arya-Bhata, like and Bhaskara... regarded himself as an astronomer, and studied mathematics only so far as... was useful... in his astronomy. ...In trigonometry he gives a table of natural sines of the angles in the first quadrant, proceeding by multiples of 3 3/4° defining a sine as the semichord of double the angle. ...A large proportion of the geometrical propositions which he gives are wrong."

"... wrote a work in verse... Brahma-Sphuta-Siddhanta... system of Brahma in astronomy. ...Chaps. XII. and XVIII ...are devoted to arithmetic, algebra, and geometry... It is impossible to say whether the whole of Brahmagupta’s results... are original. He knew of Arya-Bhata’s work, for he reproduces the table of sines... and it is likely that some progress in mathematics had been made by Arya-Bhata’s... successors, and that Brahmagupta was acquainted with their works; but there seems no reason to doubt that the bulk of Brahmagupta’s algebra and arithmetic is original, although perhaps influenced by Diophantus... the origin of the geometry is more doubtful, probably some... is derived from Hero..."

"Albuzani... also known as Abul-Wafa... introduced all the trigonometrical functions, and constructed tables of tangents and cotangents. He was celebrated not only as an astronomer but as one of the most distinguished geometricians of his time."

"The trigonometrical ratios seem to have been the invention of Albategni... who was among the earliest of the many distinguished Arabian astronomers. He wrote the Science of the Stars (published by Regiomontanus... 1537)... [where] he determined his angles by "the semi-chord of twice the angle," i.e. by the sine of the angle (taking the radius vector as unity). Hipparchus and Ptolemy... had [also] used the chord."

"The Arabs were at first content to take the works of Euclid and Apollonius for their text-books in geometry without attempting to comment on them, but Alhazen issued in 1036 a collection of problems something like the Data of Euclid, this was translated by Sédillot... in 1836. Besides commentaries on the definitions of Euclid and on the Almagest Alhazen also wrote a work on optics which shews that he was a geometrician of considerable power: this was published at Bale in 1572, and served as the foundation for Kepler’s treatise."

"Leonardo ... known as Leonardo of Pisa... in 1202 published... Algebra et almuchabala (the title being taken from Alkarismi’s work) but... known as the Liber Abaci. He there explains the Arabic system of numeration, and remarks on its great advantages over the Roman system. He then gives an account of algebra, and points out the convenience of using geometry to get rigid demonstrations of algebraical formulae. He shews how to solve simple equations... All the algebra is rhetorical. ...Roger Bacon ...recommends the (...the arithmetic founded on the Arab notation) ...[B]y the year 1300, or at the latest 1350, these numerals were familiar both to mathematicians and to Italian merchants. ...He ...wrote a geometry termed Practica Geometriae ...1220. This is a good compilation and some trigonometry is introduced; among other propositions and examples he finds the area of a triangle in terms of its sides."

"Similarly to the spread of the Indian place-value system, Indian trigonometry came to Europe via the Arab world, for example through the work on astronomy and trigonometry of Abu Abdallah Mohammad ibn Jabir al-Battani (ca. 850–929), also known as Albategnius, whose Kitab al-Zij was translated into Latin."

"Euler wrote... Introductio in Analysin infinitorum, 1748, which was intended to serve as an introduction to pure analytical mathematics. ...He ...showed that the trigonometrical and exponential functions are connected by the relation \cos \theta + i \sin \theta = e^{i\theta}. Here too we meet the symbol e used to denote the base of the Naperian logarithms, namely the incommensurable number 2.7182818... The use of the single symbol to denote the incommensurable number 2.7182818... seems to be due to Cotes, who denoted it by M. Newton was probably the first to employ the literal exponential notation, and Euler using the form a'z, had taken a as the base of any system of logarithms. It is probable that the choice of e for a particular base was determined by its being a vowel consecutive to a, or, still more probable because e is the initial of the word exponent."

"[I]n 1575 Western Europe had recovered most of the major mathematical works of antiquity now extant. Arabic algebra had been... mastered and improved... through the solution of the cubic and quartic and through... partial... symbolism; and trigonometry had become an independent discipline. The time was almost ripe for rapid strides... The transition from the Renaissance to the modern world was... made through... intermediate figures, a few of the more important... Galileo Galilei... and ... from Italy; several... as .., Thomas Harriot.., and ... were English; two... Simon Stevin... and ... were Flemish; others came from varied lands—John Napier... from Scotland, Jobst Bürgi... from Switzerland, and Johann Kepler... from Germany."

"At its higher levels the golden age of Muslim civilization was both an immense scientific success and a exceptional revival of ancient philosophy. These were not its only triumphs... but they eclipse the rest. ...[T]he Saracens ...made the most original contributions [to science]. These, in brief, were nothing less than trigonometry and algebra... In trigonometry the Muslims invented the sine and the tangent. The Greeks had measured an angle only from the chord of the arc it subtended: the sine was half the chord. The Chosranian (...Mohammed Ibn-Musa) published in 820 an algebraic treatise which went as far as quadratic equations: translated into Latin in the sixteenth century, it became a primer for the West. Later, Muslim mathematicians resolved biquadratic equations. Equally distinguished were Islam's mathematical geographers, its astronomical observatories and instruments (in particular the ) and its excellent if still imperfect measurements of and , correcting the flagrant errors of Ptolemy."

"The development of Indian trigonometry, based on sine as against chord of the Greeks was another of 's achievements which was necessary for astronomical calculations. Because of his own concise notation, he could express the full sine table in just one couplet, which students could easily remember. For preparing the table of sines, he gave two methods, one of which was based on the property that the second order sine differences were proportional to sines themselves."

"The applications of trigonometry in Book II. of the Almagest and the geometry of eccentric circles and epicycles in Book III. belong... by language and purpose, to the ."