Ancient History of Trigonometry
Egyptians and Babylonians
Achievements
The ancient Egyptians and Babylonians
had known of theorems on the ratios of
the sides of similar triangles for many
centuries. But pre-Hellenic Societies
lacked the concept of an angle
measure and consequently,
the sides of triangles were studied
instead, a field that would be better
called “trilaterometry”
Al-Khwarizmi
Muhammad
Al-Khwarizmi’s other important
contribution was algebra, a word derived
from the title of a mathematical text he
published in about 830 called “Al-Kitab
al-mukhtasar fi hisab al-jabr wa'l-
muqabala” (“The Compendious Book on
Calculation by Completion and
Balancing”). His book is considered the
foundational text of modern algebra,
although he did not employ the kind of
algebraic notation used today.
Dark Ages
A lot of the ideas that developed by
these Mathematicians or thinkers
were preserved by works studying in
the monasteries in the Western
world and by the medieval scholars
and in Middle Eastern areas.
Greek and Hellenistic
Advancements
Ancient Greek and Hellenestic
mathematicians made use of the chord
of a circle when further developing the
pre-beginnings of trigonometry. Due to
his relationship between a chord and the
other parts of a circle, a number of
trigonometric identities and theorems
that we study today were also known to
Hellenistic mathematicians, but in their
equivalent form.
Aryabhata
Aryabhata wrote many mathematical and
astronomical treatises. His chief work was
the ‘Ayrabhatiya’ which was a compilation
of mathematics and astronomy. The name of
this treatise was not given to it by Aryabhata
but by later commentators. A disciple by him
called the ‘Bhaskara’ names it
‘Ashmakatanra’ meaning ‘treatise from the
Ashmaka’. This treatise is also referred to as
‘Ayra-shatas-ashta’ which translates to
‘Aryabhata’s 108’.
Middle Ages
Naturally the science of the Middle Ages
was drawn largely from Latin sources. In
fact, during the earlier of these ages
Roman authors were the only ones read
in the Occident. Though Greek was not
wholly unknown, yet before the
thirteenth century not a single Greek
scientific work had been read or
translated into Latin. Meagre indeed was
the science which could be gotten from
Roman writers.
Hipparchus
“Father of Trigonometry”
Hipparcus, a Greek astronomer and
mathematician, is often fondly referred
to as “father of trigonometry”. Using a
very primitive form of trigonometry using
circles and chords, Hipparcuhus
compiled the first know star catalog and
developed a system of identifying places
on the surface of the earth by their
latitude and longitude. The system is still
in use to some extent today.
Ptolemy
Some 300 yrs. After Hipparchus
developed the basic trig,Ptolemy
expaned on his works greatly. Since
most of Hipparchus’ works had been
lost, it was largely due to Ptolemy that
the fundamental ideas trigonometry
were presented to the world. Ptolemy is
also famous for incorrectly supporting
the idea that our idea that our universe
was earth-centered.
Modern Era
What was going on was all of these
ideas from the ancient world which
had been to some degree was lost
or not as widely studied in the dark
ages and in the middle ages but had
been preserved by scholars in the
Arab world and by some other
monks in the western world.