300 IE 3, 1.

Plane Trigonometry
ratios R/r and R/e, R being the radius of the deferent: 8
R/r=31221/2/2471/2 R/e=3144/3272/3. (1)
Toomer found that these peculiar ratios ate numerically explicable as the consequence
of using in all trigonometric computations tables of chords based on
the above mentioned radius 3438.
The reason for choosing this basic radius is, of course, well known: the unit
of length on the radius is made the same as on the circumference c, such that the
latter measures 360 (in other words one also measures the radius in "degrees"
and "minutes "). Then, with 11: ~ 3;8,30,8 a one finds for the radius
3,O/3;8,30~ 57;17,39,54~ 57;18° = 3438'. (2)
The resulting tables of chords, in sexagesimal and decimal form, is given in
VI C 5,2, p.1132.
It was also pointed out by Toomer that the computation of the Hipparchian
table in steps of 7;300 requires fewer mathematical tools than Ptolemy's table.
Indeed, one can reach all entries of Hipparchus' table from Crd 900 and Crd 600
as soon as one can find Crd (l80-a) and Crd a/2 from Crd a.8b The first requires
only the Pythagorean theorem, while Archimedes had developed the necessary
relations for the second,8e most likely used by Hipparchus. What is not needed,
however, are formulae for Crd (a ± P), necessary for Ptolemy to reach Crd 1°. It
seems significant that Ptolemy uses for Crd (a ±P) the theorem based on a
quadrilateral of chords whereas he keeps the Archimedean procedure for Crda/2.
Obviously Ptolemy still had the Hipparchian tables of chords at his disposal,
but this seems not the case for Heron, a century earlier. In the first book of his
"Metrica"9 he determined the area of the regular polygons from n=3 to n=12
under the assumption that in all cases the side has the length 10. Had he known
a table of chords he would have kept the radius fixed and used the same formula
in all cases. Furthermore he refers in two cases (n=9 and n=l1) to a work "on
the straight lines in a circle" 10 when he needs the ratio of the side of the polygon
to the diameter of the circumscribed circle. These are exactly the two cases where
he does not operate with the triangle formed by the side of the polygon and two
radii but with the right triangle that has the diameter as its hypotenuse and the
side of the polygon as its smaller side. Obviously the work in question is a treatise
on polygons which is not based on a table of chords. 11 Perhaps it is on formal
mathematical grounds that Heron avoids existing numerical tables and referred
instead only to data obtained by Archimedes. 12
8 Cf. belowp. 315.
Sa cr. above p. 140, n. 3.
8b cr. the diagram Toomer [1973], p.19, Table II.
8c Cf. above p. 23.
9 Metrica I, 17-25, Heron, Opera III, ed. Schone, p.46, 23-64, 31.
10 Opera III, p. 58, 19; p.62, 17-18. This need not to be understood as an exact title.
II This is a conclusion first clearly established by A. Rome [1933J.
12 Opera III, p. 66,6-68,5.