Sunset Geometry

Jason Merrill

Shape Operator

by Jason Merrill
jason@shapeoperator.com

Sunset Geometry
12 Dec 2016
Robert Vanderbei has written a beautiful series of articles and talks about a
method for finding the radius of the earth based on a single photograph of a
sunset over a large, calm lake.
Vanderbeis analysis is an elegant and subtle exercise in classical trigonometry.
In this post, I would like to present an alternative analysis in a different language:
Geometric Algebra. I believe that geometric algebra is a more powerful system
for formulating and solving trigonometry problems than the classical lengths
and angles approach, and it deserves to be better known. Vanderbeis sunset
problem is simple to understand and challenging to solve, so it makes a nice
benchmark.
Heres Vanderbeis sunset problem. If the earth was flat, photographs of the
sun setting over water would look like this:

1
Notice that the reflection dips just as far below the horizon as the sun peaks
above it.
Actual photographs of the sun setting over calm water (like Vanderbeis Update:
I should have been more careful to note that most photographs of sunsets over
water actually dont look like Vanderbeis photograph (or my diagram) because
of waves and atmospheric effects, and that sensor saturation artifacts make
it hard to interpret images like this. Reproducing Vanderbeis image may be
somewhere between hard and impossible. More Below.) look more like this:

Notice the shortened reflection. This happens because of the curvature of the
earth, and by measuring the size of this effect, it is possible to infer the ratio
of the earths radius to the cameras height above the water The main virtue
of Vanderbeis method is that the evidence is so directly visual (and that you
can collect it with a smart phone on vacation). If you want to make a simpler
and better measurement with a similar flavor, climb a mountain and use an
astrolabe; the math is simpler and the measurement will be more accurate..
Vanderbei calls the angle of the sun above the horizon , and the angle of the
suns reflection below the horizon . With geometric algebra at our disposal,
its often algebraically simpler to work with unit directions than angles, so I will
also label unit directions from the camera to the top of the sun, ss, the horizon,
tt, and the bottom of the suns reflection from the water, ww.

2
To analyze this problem, its helpful to consider a side view:

There are two important triangles in this diagram: the triangle formed by the
center of the earth, the camera, and the horizon (drawn in red), and the triangle
formed by the center of the earth, the camera, and the reflection point where
the top of the sun reflects off the water (drawn in green).

The triangle equations

Triangles have a very simple algebraic representation in terms of vectors In this
post, I am following the common geometric algebra convention of writing vectors
as plain, lower-case letters, and using Greek letters for scalars. This takes a little
getting used to if you are accustomed to bold face or over-arrows for vectors,
but skipping all the decorations makes it simpler to work with lots of vectors.:
r1 d1 = p
r1d1=pr2d2=p
r2 d2 = p
These simple sums of vectors subsume all the information about the relationships
of lengths and angles that is expressed in classical trigonometry through soh-
cah-toa, the triangle postulate (sum of interior angles is 180 degrees), the
Pythagorean theorem, and the laws of cosines and sines. Quite an improvement.

3
It will be useful to re-express d1 d1 and d2 d2 in terms of the unit directions
defined previously in order to relate other vectors to known directions:
(1a) r1 | d1 | t = pr1d1t=p
(1b) r2 | d2 | w = pr2d2w=p
In other words, d1 d1 is directed toward the horizon, and d2 d2 is directed toward
the bottom of the reflection from the water.
Besides these triangles, there are a few salient geometric facts:

The horizon condition

The line of sight to the horizon is tangent to the earth at the horizon, and is
therefore perpendicular to the radius of the earth through the horizon.
(2) r1 d1 = r1 t = 0r1d1=r1t=0

The reflection condition

In terms of angles, this is expressed as angle of incidence equals angle of reflec-
tion. In terms of vectors, it can be restated as
r2 s = r2 wr2s=r2w
or
(3) r2 (s + w) = 0r2(s+w)=0

Known lengths
We know the lengths of some of these vectors in terms of the earths radius, ,
and the height of the camera above the shoreline, ,
(4a) r12 = r22 = 2 r12=r22=2
2
(4b) p2 = ( + ) p2=(+)2
(4c) s2 = w2 = t2 = 1s2=w2=t2=1
Squaring both sides of the first triangle equation (1a), and using the horizon con-
dition (2) (or equivalently, using the Pythagorean theorem) also allows finding
the length of d1 d1:
2
(4d) d21 = p2 r12 = ( + ) 2 d12=p2r12=(+)22
Equations (1-4) contain all of the geometrical information I assumed one other
important piece of geometrical information by writting s in two places on the
side-view diagram. This corresponds to the (excellent) approximation that the
sun is very far away compared to other lengths. needed to solve algebraically

4
for the Earths radius, , in terms of the given angles/directions ( and , or
ss, ww, and tt) and the height of the camera above the shoreline, .

Introducing Geometric Algebra

So far, I have formulated everything in terms of vector algebra that should

look familiar to students of physics or engineering (Gibbs vector algebra). To
actually solve the equations, I will use a few additional notions from geometric
algebra.
Geometric algebra is the answer to the question what if I could multiply and
divide by vectors? It introduces a new associative (but non-commutative) in-
vertible product between vectors: the geometric product. The geometric prod-
uct between vectors aa and bb is simply written abab. The geometric product
of a vector with itself equals a scalar (the square of the length of the vector),
aa = a2 =| a |2 aa=a2=a2
This fact, combined with associativity and the other familiar rules for multipli-
cation, is enough to define the geometric product uniquely.
The symmetric and anti-symmetric parts of the geometric product have
important geometric meaning, and are traditionally given their own special
symbols Physicists may be mystified to realize that, based on this definition
of the geometric product, parallel vectors commute, and perpendicular vectors
anti-commute. What else does that remind you of?:
(ab + ba) /2 = a b = b a
(ab+ba)/2(abba)/2=ab=ba=ab=ba
(ab ba) /2 = a b = b a
I will assume that the dot product, a bab, is familiar: it is related to the
projection of one vector onto another, and proportional to the cosine of the
angle between them.
The wedge product, a bab, is probably only familiar if you have studied dif-
ferential forms (or geometric algebra, of course), but it is very similar to the
more familiar cross product, a bab. It represents the directed area of the
parallelogram spanned by two vectors, and is proportional to the sine of the
angle between them Anti-symmetry and bi-linearity are exactly what is needed
to represent area: a vector spans no area with itself (anti-symmetry), and the
area of a parallelogram scales linearly with the lengths of each of its legs (bi-
linearity).

The wedge product is extremely useful in linear algebra because it represents

linear subspaces spanned by any number of vectors in a way that can be ma-
nipulated algebraically.. Whereas the cross product represents directed area by
a vector orthogonal to the area (a trick that works only in 3 dimensions), the

5
wedge product represents a directed area by a different kind of object called a
bivector. The wedge product is associative (like the geometric product, but
unlike the cross or dot products), and the wedge product of more than two
vectors builds objects of higher grades. The wedge product between 3 vectors
is a trivector representing a directed volume (of the parallelepiped spanned by
them), and the wedge product between k different vectors is a k-vector rep-
resenting a directed k-dimensional volume (which is always zero in spaces of
dimension less than k).
We can turn these definitions around to write the geometric product in terms
of the dot and wedge products,
ab = a b + a b = ab0 + ab2 ab=ab+ab=ab0+ab2
where ab0 ab0 and ab2 ab2 are notations for the scalar part and the
bivector part.
There is a strange thing about this object: it represents the sum of two different
kinds of things, a scalar and a bivector. But this should be no more troubling
than the fact that a complex number represents the sum of a real number
and an imaginary number, (in fact, there is an extremely close relationship
between complex numbers and the geometric product of two vectors). With
experience, it becomes clear that a sum of a scalar and a bivector is exactly what
is needed to represent the product of two vectors in an associative, invertible
way.
The geometric product gives us two new super powers when working with vector
equations:

Solving equations involving products of vectors.

Given an equation for two different products of vectors
ab = cdab=cd
if bb is known, we can solve for aa by right-multiplying by b1 b1 (i.e. dividing
by bb).
a = cdb1 a=cdb1
b1 b1 is well-defined by demanding
bb1 = 1bb1=1
left-multiplying by bb
b2 b1 = bb2b1=b
and dividing through by the scalar b2 b2
b1 = b
b2 b1=b2b

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Contrast this to the dot product and the cross/wedge product. In general, even
when bb is known, it is not possible to uniquely solve any one of the following
equations for aa.
ab =cd
ab = c d ababab=cd=cd=cd
ab =cd
The first equation only determines the part of aa that is parallel to bb, and
the second two equations only determine the part of aa that is perpendicular
to bb. You need both of these to solve for all of aa, and thats what the single
geometric product gives you.

Transitive relationships between vectors

It frequently occurs that we know the relationships of two vectors aa and bb
to a third vector cc, and we would like to use this information to determine
the relationship between aa and bb. Algebraically, we can take the unknown
product
abab
and insert the identity
cc1 = cc
|c|2 = 1cc1=c2cc=1
between the factors and re-associate
( ) ( )
ab = a cc1 b = (ac) c1 b = |c|12 (ac) (cb)ab=a(cc1)b=(ac)(c1b)=c21(ac)(cb)
thus re-expressing the unknown product abab in terms of the known products
products acac and cbcb.
Because cc1 = 1cc1=1, we can insert it anywhere that its convenient in any
product of vectors. This has the same practical effect as resolving vectors into
parts parallel and perpendicular to c. This is an example of a very general
technique that shows up in many forms throughout mathematics: inserting an
identity to resolve a product into simpler pieces.
We will use this trick twice below at a critical moment in solving the sunset
problem.

Reformulating the horizon and reflection conditions

In order to make efficient use of geometric algebras tools, it is useful to refor-

mulate equations (2) and (3) (the horizon and reflection conditions) in terms of
the geometric product instead of the dot product.

7
Horizon condition
Consider the geometric product
r1 t = r1 t + r1 t = r1 tr1t=r1t+r1t=r1t
where the first equality is an expression of the general vector identity ab =
a b + a bab=ab+ab, and the second equality follows from r1 t = 0r1t=0,
our previous form of the horizon condition (2).
In two dimensions, there is only one unit bivector, called II, spanned by any
two orthogonal unit vectors e1 e1 and e2 e2:
e1 e2 = e1 e2 = Ie1e2=e1e2=I
Therefore r1 tr1t is proportional to II, and since r1 r1 and tt are orthogonal,
we can write
(2) r1 t = r1 t =| r1 || t | I =| r1 | I = Ir1t=r1t=r1tI=r1I=I

Reflection Condition
Our previous version of the reflection condition (3) also has the form of an
orthogonality condition:
r2 (s + w) = 0r2(s+w)=0
so, similarly to the way we rewrote the horizon condition, we can rewrite this
in terms of the geometric product as Theres another way to write reflections
in geometric algebra that shows up more commonly: r2 s = wr2 r2s=wr2 or
s = r21 wr2 = r2 wr21 s=r21wr2=r2wr21.

This other form is very useful for composing reflections into rotations, or fac-
toring rotations into reflections, but the form we use here involving forming an
orthogonal vector will be more convenient when it comes time to solve for r2 r2.
r2 (s + w) =| r2 || s + w | Ir2(s+w)=r2s+wI
It will simplify later algebra to define a new unit vector based on this equation:
g s+w
|s+w| gs+ws+w

g 2 = 1g2=1
so that the reflection condition becomes
(3) r2 g =| r2 || g | I =| r2 | I = Ir2g=r2gI=r2I=I

8
Solving for the Earths radius

Now that we have rewritten our main geometric conditions in terms of the
geometric product instead of the dot product, we are ready to solve the triangle
equations.
First, eliminate pp and set the left hand sides of (1a) and (1b) equal to one
another This equation involving a sum of four vectors is a quadrilateral equa-
tion in exactly the same sense as our earlier triangle equations: it expresses the
fact that the red vectors and green vectors in our diagram form a quadrilateral.:
r1 | d1 | t = r2 | d2 | wr1d1t=r2d2w
The magnitude | d2 |d2 is unknown, so we could proceed by solving for it, but
it is more efficient to simply eliminate it in the following way. First, multiply
both sides of the equation on the right by ww:
r1 w | d1 | tw = r2 w | d2 | w2 r1wd1tw=r2wd2w2
Now we can use grade separation to separately consider the scalar and bivector
parts of this equation. Since w2 w2 is a scalar, the | d2 |d2 dependence drops
out of the bivector part:
r1 w | d1 | tw2 = r2 w2 r1wd1tw2=r2w2
Rearranging to isolate the | d1 |d1 term gives
| d1 | tw2 = r1 w r2 w2 d1tw2=r1wr2w2
We can now take advantage of the horizon and reflection conditions to rewrite
the unknown products r1 wr1w and r2 wr2w in terms of known products by
inserting factors of tt = 1tt=1 and gg = 1gg=1 and re-associating (this is the
second super power from the introduction above):
| d1 | tw2 = r1 ttw r2 ggw2 d1tw2=r1ttwr2ggw2
We can simplify both r1 tr1t and r2 gr2g to II using the horizon (2) and reflec-
tion (3) conditions:
| d1 | tw2 = Itw Igw2 d1tw2=ItwIgw2
Now expanding the geometric products of vectors into dot and wedge product
gives
| d1 | t w = I (g w t w)d1tw=I(gwtw)
where I have dropped terms like t w2 = 0tw2=0 and I (t w g w)2 =
0I(twgw)2=0 because they contain no part with grade 2.
We can take advantage of the known length | d1 |2 d12 derived as (4d) by taking
the magnitude squared of both sides:
2
| d1 |2 | t w |2 = 2 [(g w t w)
]
(gwtw)2 d12tw2d12=2(gwtw)2=2[tw2(gwtw)2]
| d1 |2 = 2 |tw|2

9
To simplify further algebra, for the term in brackets, introduce
(gwtw)2
2 |tw|2 2tw2(gwtw)2

which is written entirely in terms of known products of directions. This gives

| d1 |2 = 2 2 d12=22
Now substituting from (4d) for | d1 |2 d12 gives
2
( + ) 2 = 2 2 (+)22=22
and dividing through by 2 2 gives
( )2
1 + 1 = 2 (1+)21=2

and finally, we are able to solve for , the radius of the earth I (and Vanderbei)
have chosen a positive square root here. What, if anything, does the negative
square root represent?
(5) = =1+21
1+2 1

We can recover Vanderbeis final answer by rewriting 2 2 in terms of angles

using the following relationships:
tw = cos ()
tw = sin () I ( ) twtwgw=cos()=sin()I=cos()=cos(2+)
gw = cos () = cos +
2

so
(cos()cos())2
2 = sin()2
2=sin()2(cos()cos())2

From this and (5), it is a simple exercise in trigonometric identities to recover

the form given on slide 28 in Vanderbeis talk, but there are two better forms
that I will show instead.
First, a small angle form.
Using the general approximations

1 + x2 1 + x2 /2 f or x1
sin f or 1
1+x2sincos1+x2/212/2forx1for1for1
cos 1 2 /2 f or 1

we can simplify (5) to

8 2
(5) 2
2 ( 2 2 )2
22(22)282
The angles in Vanderbeis photo are quite small, so this approximation is accu-
rate to better than one part in a million Its also simpler than other small angle
approximations previously given by Vanderbei.. Since the uncertainty in the

10
angles and camera height are about 10% each, this small angle approximation
is certainly sufficient.
In fact, when calculating with rounded (floating point) arithmetic, the small
angle form (5) is actually more accurate than the exact form given by Van-
derbei. This counterintuitive fact occurs because the exact form suffers from
catastrophic cancellation, the result of subtracting approximately equal values
that have been computed with rounding error.
We can get rid of one place such cancellation occurs by multiplying
the numer-
ator and denominator of our exact expression (5) by 1 + 1 + 2 1+1+2 to
get

1+2 +1
(5) = 2 =21+2+1
and we can get rid of another source of cancelation by replacing the difference
of cosines in our expression for 2 2 with a difference of sines using the general
trigonometric identity This identity is related to the classical Haversine Formula
from spherical trigonometry. Evelyn Lamb has written a wonderful blog post
on this and other creatures in the zoo of forgotten trigonometry functions.
( )
cos () = 1 2 sin2 2 cos()=12sin2(2)
so that:
2
(sin2 ( 2 )sin2 ( 2 ))
2 = 4 sin() 2 2=4sin()2(sin2(2)sin2(2))2
This is helpful because were now subtracting two numbers that are very close
to 0 instead of very close to 1, and intermediate rounding to a fixed number
of digits throws away less information for numbers that are close to 0 than for
numbers that are close to 1.
Plugging this expression for 2 2 into the non-cancelling form for (5) now
allows computing without undue rounding issues.
To evaluate in terms of measured parameters, insert the following values into
either (5) or (5)
= 69 px 0.5 /317 px = 0.001899 rad
= 29 px 0.5 /317 px = 0.0007983 rad
= + = 0.001349 rad
2 2=69 px0.5/317 px=29 px0.5/317 px=2+=5.482107
2 = 5.482 107
= 7 ft
= 2.55 107 f t = 4836 mi
This is 20% larger than the true value, 3960 mi Its also different in the second
digit from the answer given by Vanderbei (slide 28). I think this is attributable
to the catastrophic cancellation discussed above, combined with low precision
calculation.. Not too bad.

11
Comparison to other systems

Classical trigonometry
At this point, perhaps you are thinking that Im crazy to believe that the analysis
above is simpler than doing classical trigonometry. We learned trigonometry in
high school, and it wasnt all that hard, right? And the geometric algebra anal-
ysis involves a bunch of unfamiliar notations, keeping track of non-commuting
multiplications, and the new geometric notion of bivector On the other hand,
it does give you algebraic super powers..
But the classical trigonometry analysis of this problem is hard. Harder than the
trigonometry problems that you solved in high school. If you dont believe me,
take a crack at solving it without referring to Vanderbeis analysis. Or even just
follow along with the talk and fill in all the algebra.
The subtlest part of Vanderbeis formulation of the problem involves noticing a
non-trivial relationship between 4 angles:
+ = + +=+
and the subtlest part of solving the problem involves solving the trigonometric
equation This equation is transcendental in the angles, but turns out to be
algebraic (quadratic) in cos ()cos().
cos ( + ) = cos () cos ()cos(+)=cos()cos()
for cos ()cos().
Solving difficult trigonometry problems in the classical language tends to in-
volve constantly moving back and forth between algebraic expressions and the
diagrams. This is because the full relationships between lengths and angles
as separate entities are much more complicated than the relationships between
vectors, which keep information about magnitude and direction conveniently
integrated together. For this reason, in classical analyses, much of the informa-
tion about lengths and angles is typically left implicit in diagrams, rather than
being written down in an explicitly algebraic form.
In contrast, in the geometric algebra formulation, once the (fairly simple) equa-
tions (1-4) were written down, the rest of the solution was entirely algebraic. It
also did not involve invoking any laws for relationships between transcendental
functions (sinsin and coscos).
Besides classical trigonometry, there are a few other competing (and partially
overlapping) algebraic systems for solving geometrical problems, and all of them
are capable of solving this problem.

Gibbs Vector Algebra

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You could stick to Gibbs vector analysis (dot products and cross products), and
use a cross product with ww to annihilate | d2 |d2 in a similar way that we
used grade separation. There is no explicitly algebraic analogue to our trick of
inserting factors of gg = 1gg=1 and tt = 1tt=1 to relate unknown products of
two vectors to known products with a third. Even so, you could split r1 r1 and
r2 r2 into parts parallel and perpendicular to gg and tt and achieve essentially
similar results, with a little bit more of the reasoning left in prose instead of
algebra. The major deficiency of Gibbs vector analysis is that the cross product
is funny in 2D (because it returns an object that lives outside the plane), forces
you to think about things like pseudo-vectors pseudo-vectors are vectors that
want to be bivectors. in 3D if you consider the behavior of the cross product
under transformations, and doesnt work at all in more than 3 dimensions. But
none of those problems is fatal here, and Gibbs vector algebra is a good and
efficient way to solve plane trigonometry problems. If you know it, use it.

Complex Numbers
Alternatively, you could use complex numbers, and this works very well for
problems in the plane. Like geometric algebra, complex numbers provide an
associative and invertible product between directed magnitudes in the plane,
and there are analogues to all the algebraic tricks we used here. The following
mapping is useful for understanding the relationship between systems:
( )
ab Re (ab )
a b Im ab abababRe(ab)Im(ab)ab
ab ab
The main deficiencies of complex numbers are that they dont extend well to
three or more dimensions, and that they single out the real axis as a special di-
rection in the plane in a way that isnt appropriate to problems with rotational
symmetry. I also think there isnt as much of a culture of viewing and under-
standing complex numbers geometrically as there is for Gibbs vector analysis
or geometric algebra. For example, did you know that if two complex numbers
are oriented along orthogonal directions, then
( )
Re ab = 0Re(ab)=0
This is an important geometric idea, but I only know it because it falls out of
the mapping to geometric algebra.

Rational Trigonometry
NJ Wildberger has recently advocated a system of doing trigonometry called
Rational Trigonometry that avoids all use of transcendental functions and many
uses of the square root function. Its a pretty system with some definite merits,
and Id be interested to see someone analyze this problem with it.

13
Nevertheless, with geometric algebra, we were able to avoid all the same tran-
scendental functions and square roots that Wildbergers system avoids, and
geometric algebra extends more easily to more than two dimensions and is more
thoroughly coordinate free. Rational trigonometry also has the same problem
as classical trigonometry in that directions and magnitudes are represented and
manipulated separately instead of integrated together as vectors.
I wonder what a Rational Trigonometer would do at the step where we use
grade separation to annihilate | d2 |d2, or at the steps where we insert factors
of gg = 1gg=1 and tt = 1tt=1 to decompose unknown vectors against known
vectors.

Pauli Matrices
Physicists use Pauli matrices to model 3D geometry in quantum mechanics
problems. That system is completely isomorphic to the geometric algebra of 3D
vectors, and can (and should) be used completely algebraically without ever in-
troducing explicit matrix representations. But physicists rarely contemplate us-
ing Pauli matrices to solve non-quantum mechanical geometry problems because
they believe that Pauli matrices are fundamentally quantum objects, somehow
related to spin-1/2 particles like the electron. I have never seen someone try
to use Pauli matrices to solve a trigonometry problem, but it can certainly be
done.

Conclusion

Through years of experience solving physics and computer graphics problems,

I have slowly learned to be skeptical of angles. In many problems where your
input data is given in terms of coordinates or lengths, it is possible to solve
the problem completely without ever introducing angles, and in these cases,
introducing angles adds algebraic complications and computational inefficiencies.
In 3D, introducing angles also invites gimbal lock.
This is not to say that angles are never useful; quite the contrary Lest I give
the wrong impression, geometric algebra is perfectly capable of handling angles,
and in fact smoothly extends the way that complex numbers handle angles to
more dimensions. Its just that it also allows you to avoid angles where they
arent fundamental.

For example, geometric algebras version of the Euler formula is

exp (I) = cos () + sin () Iexp(I)=cos()+sin()I

14
where II is any unit bivector, and in more than two dimensions, this formula is
valid for each separate plane.. They are exactly what you need for problems ex-
plicitly involving arc lengths on a circle (so especially problems involving rolling
discs, cylinders, or spheres), or rotation at a uniform rate, or for interpolating
continuously between known discrete rotations. Theyre also handy for mak-
ing small angle approximations. However, for most problems involving areas,
projections, reflections, and other simple relationships between vectors (in other
words, most problems of trigonometry), angles are a distraction from more direct
solutions.
To say it another way, Wildberger (author of Rational Trigonometry) empha-
sizes that you dont need to think about arc lengths on a circle to understand
triangles, and on this point I agree with him completely. Of course, you do
need to think about arc lengths on a circle to understand problems involving
arc lengths on a circle. For these problems, we should of course know and use
angles.
Given this point of view, when I came across Vanderbeis sunset problem, I
thought there must be a simpler way with fewer angles. So this is my best
attempt, using the most efficient tool I know.
If you didnt know any geometric algebra before, and you have made it here,
thank you and congratulations. I hope I have at least made you more intrigued
about its possibilities. It is impossible to teach someone geometric algebra in
one blog post (just as it is impossible to teach someone classical trigonometry,
complex numbers, or vector analysis in one blog post). The best places I know
to learn more are:
Hestenes Oersted Medal lecture: (PDF). This is a compact introduction
by the founder of modern Geometric Algebra.
Dorst, Fontijne, and Mann, Geometric Algebra for Computer Science.
This book is by far the best pedagogical introduction I have seen if you
want to actually learn how to calculate things. Unlike most other books
on the subject, you dont need to know any physics (or even care about
physics) to appreciate it.
Additionally, Hestenes website has many wonderful papers, and I also especially
recommend two of his other books for more advanced readers:
Space-Time Algebra. Hestenes original book on the subject, a very com-
pact, energetic, and wide-ranging presentation with some deep physical
applications. Recently re-issued by Birkhuser.
Clifford Algebra to Geometric Calculus. This is a challenging, advanced,
and sometimes frustrating reference book, but it presents the subject in far
more depth than it has been presented anywhere else. It used to be hard
to find, and I suspect that few people have truly read it carefully. But it
contains results that will probably continue to be rediscovered for decades.
Chapter 7 on directed integration theory is especially notable: it contains
extensions of most of the magical integral formulas of complex analysis

15
 (like Cauchys integral formula) to any number of dimensions (and even
to curved manifolds!).
Finally, thank you to Steven Strogatz for first pointing me to this problem (and
a related, fiendishly difficult pure trigonometric functions problem). And of
course, thank you to Robert Vanderbei for dreaming up this wonderful problem,
and presenting it so beautifully.

Updates

Bret Victor notes on Twitter that many more of the equations in this post could
be accompanied by diagrams. Interactive diagrams. His example:

Ill list a few relevant resources along these lines:

Daniel Fontijne wrote a program called GAViewer to accompany Geo-
metric Algebra for Computer Science (recommended above) that allows
visualizing and visually manipulating GA expressions. I wish you could
embed it on the web.
Apparatus is a very cool environment for drawing interactive diagrams,
and I hear you can embed apparatus creations into other web pages now.
Maybe someone can teach it how to speak GA!

16
 weshoke ported the Versor GA library to Javascript (Versor.js) and there
are stubs of an expression parser and a canvas renderer written by a few
other contributors (including me). Maybe you could be the one to flesh
this out!
Finally, Ill mention that Desmos (my employer) is a great way to inter-
act with equations, functions, and graphs (but GA isnt on our current
roadmap).

Jacob Rus writes to suggest a few more resources for learning about GA:
I was a bit surprised you didnt mention Hesteness NFCM book, as
that seems closest to the type of problem solving you were doing:
David Hestenes, New Foundations for Classical Mechanics
A couple other sources you might mention:
Alan Bromborsky, An Introduction to Geometric Algebra and
Calculus
Eric Chisholm, Geometric Algebra
At a closer to high school geometry level, perhaps also:
Ramon Gonzlez Calvet, The Clifford-Grassmann Geometric
Algebra
James A Smith, viXra papers on Geometric Algebra
New Foundations for Classical Mechanics is the first book I read about GA.
It has tons of great diagrams, and gives some interesting new perspectives on
well known mechanics problems. This book got me excited about GA, but I
personally found Geometric Algebra for Computer Science (recommended above)
did a better job teaching me how to calculate things and solve problems on my
own.

A few readers have written in with skepticism about whether Vanderbeis pho-
tograph shows what he (and I) said it shows. A quick search on Google Images
shows that ripples and waves in water generally play a dominant role in the
appearance of the suns reflection. Vanderbei addresses waves, atmospheric ef-
fects, and CCD saturation in his article and concludes that the reflection in his
image does display the geometric effect under discussion, but that he was lucky
to obtain such an image.
Randall Monroe writes:
There are some cool and somewhat similar tricks for estimating the
size of the Earth by carefully observing the sunset. My favorite
is to go to a beach at sunrise and stand atop some steps or a life-
guard stand. When the sun first appears, start a stopwatch. Then

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 run/drop quickly to the ground, and time how long it takes the sun
to appear a second time. I think you can use that to work out the
Earths radius.
Heres a page spelling out the relevant calculations. If you live on the West
Coast, like me, you dont even have to wake up early to try this.

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