Heather Mortimore

Trigonometry is used every single day in the real world. Architects use it for making walls

parallel and perpendicular, and roof inclination appropriate for the climate of where they're

building, for example making sure the roof doesn't collapse in on you in the winter under the

weight of the snow. Pilots use it to orient themselves in the skies, so you actually land in Italy

and not France. Blood splatter analysts rely on it heavily when working a crime scene.

Trigonometry can even be applied to baseball. The real-world applications are seemingly

endless. And to save the one we all might regularly consume and not realize its trigonometrical

value for last; music and the sound waves that comprise the melodies we all know and love!

Asking if trigonometry is useful is silly. What a strange notion it would be to say a tool like

trigonometry, with its many functions, isn't useful. Of course, it is!

I have learned many things while being a student of trigonometry. One would be how

underrepresented it is in its many uses. And another is the realization that I may need to use the

skills I am learning to someday solve a problem I am faced with. In the field of biology,

trigonometry has many uses. Just to name a few, it can be used to determine the size of an animal

that is otherwise difficult to measure, to find out how light levels at different depths affect the

ability of algae to photosynthesize, and in X-ray crystallography to determine the three-

dimensional structure of molecules.