Indian mathematics[edit]

See also: Indian Mathematics and Indian astronomy

Some of the early and very significant developments of trigonometry were in India. Influential works
from the 4th–5th century, known as the Siddhantas (of which there were five, the most important of
which is the Surya Siddhanta[19]) first defined the sine as the modern relationship between half an
angle and half a chord, while also defining the cosine, versine, and inverse sine.[20] Soon afterwards,
another Indian mathematician and astronomer, Aryabhata (476–550 AD), collected and expanded
upon the developments of the Siddhantas in an important work called the Aryabhatiya.
[21]
 The Siddhantas and the Aryabhatiya contain the earliest surviving tables of sine values
and versine (1 − cosine) values, in 3.75° intervals from 0° to 90°, to an accuracy of 4 decimal places.
[22]
 They used the words jya for sine, kojya for cosine, utkrama-jya for versine, and otkram jya for
inverse sine. The words jya and kojya eventually became sine and cosine respectively after a
mistranslation described above.
In the 7th century, Bhaskara I produced a formula for calculating the sine of an acute angle without
the use of a table. He also gave the following approximation formula for sin(x), which had a relative
error of less than 1.9%:
Later in the 7th century, Brahmagupta redeveloped the formula
(also derived earlier, as mentioned above) and the Brahmagupta interpolation formula for
computing sine values.[23]
Another later Indian author on trigonometry was Bhaskara II in the 12th century. Bhaskara
II developed spherical trigonometry, and discovered many trigonometric results.
Bhaskara II was the one of the first to discover  and  trigonometric results like:
Madhava (c. 1400) made early strides in the analysis of trigonometric functions and
their infinite series expansions. He developed the concepts of the power series and Taylor
series, and produced the power series expansions of sine, cosine, tangent, and arctangent.
[24][25]
 Using the Taylor series approximations of sine and cosine, he produced a sine table to
12 decimal places of accuracy and a cosine table to 9 decimal places of accuracy. He also
gave the power series of π and the angle, radius, diameter, and circumference of a circle in
terms of trigonometric functions. His works were expanded by his followers at the Kerala
School up to the 16th century.[24][25]

Western discoverers of the series

No. Series Name and approximate dates of
discovery[26]

sin x  =  x − x3 / 3! + x5 / 5!   Madhava's sine   Isaac Newton (1670) and Wilhelm

  1
− x7 / 7! + ...    series   Leibniz (1676)  

cos x  = 1 − x2 / 2! + x4 / 4!   Madhava's cosine   Isaac Newton (1670) and Wilhelm
  2  
− x6 / 6! + ...   series   Leibniz (1676)  

  3   tan−1x  =  x − x3 / 3 + x5 / 5   Madhava's   James Gregory (1671) and Wilhelm

 − x7 / 7 + ...   arctangent series   Leibniz (1676)   

The Indian text the Yuktibhāṣā contains proof for the expansion of

the sine and cosine functions and the derivation and proof of the power series for inverse
tangent, discovered by Madhava. The Yuktibhāṣā also contains rules for finding the sines
and the cosines of the sum and difference of two angles.

Chinese mathematics[edit]

Guo Shoujing (1231–1316)

In China, Aryabhata's table of sines were translated into the Chinese mathematical book of

the Kaiyuan Zhanjing, compiled in 718 AD during the Tang Dynasty.[27] Although the Chinese
excelled in other fields of mathematics such as solid geometry, binomial theorem, and
complex algebraic formulas, early forms of trigonometry were not as widely appreciated as
in the earlier Greek, Hellenistic, Indian and Islamic worlds. [28] Instead, the early Chinese used
an empirical substitute known as chong cha, while practical use of plane trigonometry in
using the sine, the tangent, and the secant were known.[27] However, this embryonic state of
trigonometry in China slowly began to change and advance during the Song Dynasty (960–
1279), where Chinese mathematicians began to express greater emphasis for the need of
spherical trigonometry in calendrical science and astronomical calculations.
[27]
 The polymath Chinese scientist, mathematician and official Shen Kuo (1031–1095) used
trigonometric functions to solve mathematical problems of chords and arcs. [27] Victor J. Katz
writes that in Shen's formula "technique of intersecting circles", he created an approximation
of the arc s of a circle given the diameter d, sagitta v, and length c of the chord subtending
the arc, the length of which he approximated as[29]
Sal Restivo writes that Shen's work in the lengths of arcs of circles provided the basis
for spherical trigonometry developed in the 13th century by the mathematician and
astronomer Guo Shoujing (1231–1316).[30] As the historians L. Gauchet and Joseph
Needham state, Guo Shoujing used spherical trigonometry in his calculations to improve
the calendar system and Chinese astronomy.[27][31] Along with a later 17th-century
Chinese illustration of Guo's mathematical proofs, Needham states that:
Guo used a quadrangular spherical pyramid, the basal quadrilateral of which consisted
of one equatorial and one ecliptic arc, together with two meridian arcs, one of which
passed through the summer solstice point...By such methods he was able to obtain the
du lü (degrees of equator corresponding to degrees of ecliptic), the ji cha (values of
chords for given ecliptic arcs), and the cha lü (difference between chords of arcs
differing by 1 degree).[32]

Despite the achievements of Shen and Guo's work in trigonometry, another substantial
work in Chinese trigonometry would not be published again until 1607, with the dual
publication of Euclid's Elements by Chinese official and astronomer Xu Guangqi (1562–
1633) and the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552–1610).[33]