Trigonometry- derived from the words trigonon which means triangle and metron which means to measure.

A branch of mathematics concerned with the relationship between angles and their sides and the calculations based on them.

Trigonometry was first invented by the Greeks, and was used for navigation and astronomy.
It was first used by Hipparchus in 150 BC. He started out with creating a bunch of tablets with certain ratios. He then went on to start to define chord, sine, and cosine. Claudius Ptolemy continued Hipparchus work, and improved on his tables. He was also able to figure out how to calculate square roots. He then continued to work on Sine and Cosine rules, and defined for us the inverse functions of Sine and Cosine. Also during the 10th and 11th centuries in Egypt, mathematicians were able to determine other formulas.

During Medieval times, the Chinese developed the tangent function, and the Indians created sine and cosine tables. They also helped to develop the formal definitions for cosine, cotangent, secant, and cosecant.

In 1559, Bartholemaeus Pitiscus published a work called Trigonometry, which is probably where we get the name today.

Pitiscus Hipparchus

Aryabhata
Regiomonatus Guo Shoujing

Theodosius

 Although Pitiscus worked much in the theological field, his proper abilities concerned mathematics, and particularly trigonometry. The word 'trigonometry' is due to Pitiscus and first occurs in the title of his work Trigonometria: sive de solutione triangulorum tractatus brevis et perspicuus first published in Heidelberg in 1595 as the final section of A Scultetus's Sphaericorum libri tres methodice conscripti et utilibus scholiis expositi. The first section, divided into five books, covers plane and spherical trigonometry. In the first book he introduced the main definitions and theorems of plane and spherical trigonometry. The third of the five books is devoted to plane trigonometry and it consists of six fundamental theorems. The fourth book consists of four fundamental theorems on spherical trigonometry, while the fifth book proves a number of propositions on the trigonometric functions. Trigonometry: or, the doctrine of triangles.

He made an early contribution to trigonometry producing a table of chords, an early example of a trigonometric table; indeed some historians go so far as to say that trigonometry was invented by him. Finally let us examine the contributions which Hipparchus made to trigonometry.

Even if he did not invent it, Hipparchus is the first person whose systematic use of trigonometry we have documentary evidence.
If this is so, Hipparchus was not only the founder of trigonometry but also the man who transformed Greek astronomy from a purely theoretical into a practical predictive science.

The mathematical part of the Aryabhatiya covers arithmetic, algebra, plane trigonometry and spherical trigonometry.
We now look at the trigonometry contained in Aryabhata's treatise. He also introduced the versine (versin = 1 - cosine) into trigonometry.

Regiomontanus made important contributions to trigonometry and astronomy. In the Epitome Regiomontanus, realising the need for a systematic account of trigonometry to support astronomy, promised to write such a treatise. With Book II the study of trigonometry gets under way in earnest. Books III, IV and V treat spherical trigonometry which, of course, is of major importance in astronomy.

Making sense of the data gathered from the instruments required a knowledge of spherical trigonometry and Guo devised some remarkable formulae. We should now look at the rather remarkable work which Guo did on spherical trigonometry and solving equations. The first column is the value of x using Guo's formula taking an accurate modern approximation to , the second column is the result given by the formula with = 3, while the third column is the correct answer calculated using trigonometry (in fact the cosine).

Sphaerics contains no trigonometry although it is likely that Hipparchus introduced spherical trigonometry before Sphaerics was written (although, one has to assume, after the book on which Sphaerics is based, which would certainly be the case if this earlier book was written by Eudoxus). Perhaps it is worth remarking that despite our comment above that the work contains no trigonometry, there are some results which we could easily interpret in trigonometrical terms.

 Astronomy has been studied for millennia by civilizations in all regions of the world. In our modern age, being able to apply Astronomy helps us to calculate distances between stars and learn more about the universe. Astronomers use the method of parallax, or the movement of the star against the background as we orbit the Sun, to discover new information about galaxies. Menelaus Theorem helps astronomers gather information by providing a back drop in spherical triangle calculation.

 Trigonometry is used in geology to estimate the true dip of bedding angles. Calculating the true dip allows geologists to determine the slope stability. Although not often regarded as an integral profession, geologists contribute to the safety of many building foundations. Any adverse bedding conditions can result in slope failure and the entire collapse of a structure.

http://ph.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid= 20080617061145AA7Gk8E http://www.hackingtheuniverse.com/science/histo ry-of-science-andtechnology/genarticles/timeline-of-trigonometry http://www.clarku.edu/~djoyce/trig/apps.html http://www.edurite.com/kbase/examples-oftrigonometry-in-nature