Talk:History of trigonometry

message: This article makes the  claim that Indian mathematicians were in the 5th century BC, before Hipparchus.  In actuality, they seem to have been in the 5th century AD (and were influenced by the work of Ptolemy if I remember the book by Boyer correctly)!
Overall, I'm concerned that the article goes beyond acknowledging the Indian and Arabic contributions to trigonometry, to actually minimizing the Greek and European contributions.  In this it seems to follow the "Crest of the Peacock" book cited as a reference, and which seems to have come under heavy criticism in academic circles.  Indeed, its author admitted that he intentionally left out the Greek contributions from his book, preferring to focus on the non-European roots.  More serious is the criticism made in the Pingree review linked above that the Peacock author "has no particular expertise" in the field (and in particular relies on secondary sources because he does not know the languages) and his accounting of Indian and Arab contributions especially "abound[s] in inaccuracies of dating, of names, and of historical facts" and that the "misleading and just plain wrong statements in the book seriously affect the persuasiveness of the author's arguments."
I'm not a professional historian myself, although I've read a couple of books (by Boyer and Maor) on the history of mathematics and trigonometry which give a quite different picture from the one in this article.  It doesn't seem in keeping with WP:NPOV to (apparently) base this article so strongly on a single iconoclastic source.  Not to mention mixing up BC with AD!
—Steven G. Johnson 18:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Disputed

message: Steven,I dont know who had edited this article.But its correct now.Yes sentence "the first significant developement of trigonometry was in India" has biased view.But its correct now.Rest i do not see any disputable sentences in article.If there is any, then comment on it,We will make this page as a #REDIRECTWP:NPOV.Regarding ptolemys influence on Indian mathematicians i think this link will answer your question better then me-http://www.trigonometry-help.net/history-of-trigonometry.php. This site is authorised & clearly  used related  for info regarding trigonometry.It mentions clearly that Indian mathematicians worked on sine functions & not on 
half-chord functions as greeks & europeans did.
202.179.64.9 13:01, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  OK NOW 

message: Step on Steven & continue this talk.Remember u had declared this page under dispute so u r the only one to remove this page from disputes.I dont really know wht is seems to be wrong in this page u r still not mentioning whts incorect.This page should be soon declared as "normal point of view" as it deserves.Simply keeping quiet will not work.I am not ordering but this is too much.Reply this soon.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.179.64.9 (talk • contribs).
202.179.64.9 15:30, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Undisputable 

message: I am removing an unsourced claim in the history section about the Sulba Sutras containing trigonometric functions.  There is no evidence of this.  Since the claim was made in other WP pages as well, I decided to probe it more and realized that the source provided was G. G. Joseph's book The Crest of the Peacock: The Non-European Roots of Mathematics (p. 232).  However what is provided in Joseph's book is a modern-day proof of some results stated in the Sulba sutras, and that proof uses \sin \theta, (and that too a little redundantly since the angle is 45 degrees and he is really talking about the diagonal of a square).  There is no indication in Joseph's book anywhere that sine, cosine, or anything resembling trigonometric functions are mentioned in the Sulbasutras.  What is mentioned is the following line in Sankrit verse: "Divide the diameter of a circle into 15 equal part and take 13 of them to be the side of the square," (for "squaring the circle").  The Sulbasutras say that and nothing else (and no indication is given of how the result was discovered.) That is not evidence for knowledge of trigonometric functions.  Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes? But what does your quote have to do with the Sulba Sutras? There was a lot of great trigonometry in India in the first millennium CE.  However, in the Sulba Sutras, no trigonometry is present.  There was knowledge of Pythagoras's Theorem, but no trigonometry.  Computing the ratio of the side of a square to its diagonal doesn't mean that you have also computed \sin(\frac{\pi}{4}) and therefore you know about trigonometric functions!  Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:52, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The Sulba Sutras

message: Hello,<BR>The current name of this article is "History of trigonometric functions", but this name does not correctly reflect the contents of this article. This article does not simply limit itself to the history of trigonometric functions but rather is covers the entire history of trigonometry. Also, there is currently no "History of trigonometry" article on Wikipedia. That is why I propose renaming this article "History of trigonometry". What are your opinions on this matter? selfwormTalk) 22:16, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Considering how it has been around two weeks since I've posted this topic, I will now proceed to change the title of this article from "History of trigonometric functions" to "History of trigonometry". selfwormTalk) 02:22, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rename article "[[History of trigonometry]]" 

message: Need fix on text. Broken - can't read right.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.1.55.86 (talk) 13:10, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Early Trigonometry 

message: I find it astonishing that we gloss over the system of numeric notation in use in the various cultures at various times, as these various systems, by themselves, determine the overall development of mathematics.  Greek numerical notation was little more than hash marks (Attic, Ionian, etc.).  Roman numerals were better.  The Greeks developed algebra and other symbolic notations because their actual numbers were so unwieldy.  Which is why they used chords - and other clever dodges - to begin with.
Note the Indian contribution comes immediately after their development of what we now call "Arabic" numbers around the 4th century, but also note the strange "accurate to four decimal places" attributed to Indian mathematicians c.450 AD.  I am informed Islamic mathematicians developed decimals several centuries later.  Islam got "Arabic" numbers from India (date uncertain), which Fibonacci introduced to Europe in 1202.  Which is a date that ought to be engraved in every 6 year old's head, as it is one of the most significant dates in all history.  
Lack of an effective number system also explains the slowness of the Chinese to take up trig, as their number systems (various) were perhaps the most unwieldy of all, and which were in common use into the 20th century.  This is not to say that one positively, absolutely could not perform trig in Attic or Chinese numbers, but that the process was so difficult as to be impractical.  
The abacus was not a Chinese invention.  It had been in widespread use in Europe, before the advent of Arabic numbers.  Dave of Maryland (talk) 22:25, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  System of notation 

message: The short discussion of Cotes is marred by an unreliable source.  Rickey's article was not published in a reputable history of math or history of science journal, it was never peer-reviewed by historians.  It cites only one other article, perhaps we should look at the source Rickey cites.
Worse, Rickey makes an obvious math error: the two triangles he says are similar are not similar.  Cotes does not make this mistake, Rickey has made it while trying to simplify Cotes's longer explanation.  98.109.232.157 (talk) 06:37, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cotes is right, but Rickey is wrong. 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I don't understand the claim that 'Neither the tables of Hipparchus nor those of Ptolemy have survived to the present day, although descriptions by other ancient authors leave little doubt that they once existed'.  This may be true of Hipparchus, but not of Ptolemy.  Ptolemy's Table of Chords is included at pp.57-60 of G Toomer's 1984 English translation of the Almagest (Syntaxis).  The claim that Ptolemy's tables have not survived is attributed to Boyer's History of Mathematics, but in fact Boyer says explicitly 'Fortunately, Ptolemy's Almagest has survived the ravages of time; hence we have not only his trigonometric tables but also an account of the methods used in their construction' (Boyer, page 183 in the 1968 edition.  The edition cited in the present article has different pagination.)  I have not amended the article, as I am not an expert and may have misunderstood something, but anyone can check the citations I have given.109.149.2.108 (talk) 20:57, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ptolemy's Tables 

message: The fourth paragraph of the section “Classical Antiquity” begins with this passage that I find very oddly phrased:
“Although it is not known when the systematic use of the 360° circle came into mathematics, it is known that the systematic introduction of the 360° circle came a little after Aristarchus of Samos composed On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon (ca. 260 BC), since he measured an angle in terms of a fraction of a quadrant.”
Shouldn’t that be more like “Although it is not known when the systematic use of the 360° circle came into mathematics, it is known that it came a little after Aristarchus of Samos composed On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon (ca. 260 BC), since he measured an angle in terms of a fraction of a quadrant.” ?
Likewise, the next sentence is: “It seems that the systematic use of the 360° circle is largely due to Hipparchus and his table of chords.” which I think could be abridged to “It seems that it is largely due to Hipparchus and his table of chords.”
Am I right, or is there something I don’t understand properly?
CielProfond (talk) 04:22, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Please go ahead and rewrite for clarity. If you want to make sure you get the story right, you could refer to a reliable book, e.g. Van Brummelen’s The Mathematics of the Heavens and the Earth: The Early History of Trigonometry or works by Neugebauer on the history of mathematical astronomy. –jacobolus (t) 19:18, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redundant verbiage?