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Who Invented Trigonometry?

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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Who Invented Trigonometry?
    Posted: 30-Mar-2013 at 02:32
Creator&God!Rests just have unveiled Divine secrets of it's creation!Big smileHi Ron!Welcome aboard!

Edited by medenaywe - 30-Mar-2013 at 09:47
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  Quote TITAN_ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31-Mar-2013 at 03:54
This is an old controversy. Trigonometry as a science began with the ancient Greeks. The Babylonian attempt was not a scientific theorem with a logical proof to back it up. The word trigonometry derives definitely from Greek. Trigono = triangle. Tri = three. gono comes from gonia = angle.  Metry = to measure. Metron = meter.  It's 100% Greek. The word hasn't changed over the last 3000 years. It's exactly the same in both ancient and modern Greek.

^ "The Beginnings of Trigonometry". Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~cherlin/History/Papers2000/hunt.html

Let me quote from the above source:

"The ancient Greeks transformed trigonometry into an ordered science. Astronomy was the driving force behind advancements in trigonometry. Most of the early advancements in trigonometry were in spherical trigonometry mostly because of its application to astronomy. The three main figures that we know of in the development of Greek trigonometry are Hipparchus, Menelaus, and Ptolomy. There were likely other contributors but over time their works have been loss and their names have been forgotten.

"Even if he did not invent it, Hipparchus is the first person of whose systematic use of trigonometry we have documentary evidence." (Heath 257) Some historians go as far as to say that he invented trigonometry. "

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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Apr-2013 at 19:18
Pythagoras was known to have visited Egypt to access Alexandria's library. Perhaps his theorem was based on an older Egyptian text (useful system for building pyramids)

Edited by Nick1986 - 02-Apr-2013 at 19:19
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  Quote TITAN_ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Apr-2013 at 03:11
Originally posted by Nick1986

Pythagoras was known to have visited Egypt to access Alexandria's library. Perhaps his theorem was based on an older Egyptian text (useful system for building pyramids)

Maybe, but then again, everyone is based upon earlier findings, to some extent. Wink
The Greek alphabet is based upon the Phoenician, the Phoenician is based upon earlier Proto-Canaanite etc.

However, the end result matters the most: 21 or 22 letters of the English alphabet are found in the Euboean Greek alphabet, NOT in the Phoenician or the Proto-Canaanite scripts. Additionally, the first alphabet ever, to include both vowels and consonants was the Greek, not the Phoenician.

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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Apr-2013 at 19:23
In practical terms: which civilisations had the greatest need for trigonometry? Egypt was one of the first to quarry and carve blocks of stone, in addition to building structures large enough to require ramps and pulleys.
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  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Apr-2013 at 08:46
I would like to know where the "slide rule" came from.
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  Quote Centrix Vigilis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Apr-2013 at 09:40
Originally posted by red clay

I would like to know where the "slide rule" came from.



Easy enough. If you could remember that one the Geography prof I had as an a ugrad loved ya. .Bill (William) Oughtred(tho there are other claimants).

Now why was it important to impress the old duffer and lover of the study of land etc...because...

a. He had served with Merrills Marauders in the WW2. And lived to tell the tale.


b. He was a advisor to our Vets Club.


c. He taught fundamentals of military surveying and the fracking thing was used constantly in determination of calculs.


d. I took every class he taught and got a double minoe as a result.

And because the ole codger. May he RIP..... told the fracking DIA, I was good to go for a SECRET Clearance, upon commissioning; when they went snooping around checking my background.

Ya would have liked him...he took no shit and was liberal in social politics but as hard lined as a conservative mofo, on defense as they ever made.
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

S. T. Friedman


Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true'

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  Quote SuryaVajra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Jun-2013 at 01:56
Trigonometry began with the circle of 360 degrees.

That is the most fundamental element of trigonometry. To solve this question, we need to find who first conceived of this. Egyptians? Sumerians? Vedic people ?
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  Quote TITAN_ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Jun-2013 at 07:33
We don't know who invented it. It doesn't matter anyway. All that matters is who advanced it! The ancient Greeks did a phenomenal job and the Indians continued, many centuries later.
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  Quote SuryaVajra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Jun-2013 at 07:43
Hardly....

The circle of 360 degrees was invented around 5500 years back. I was waiting for someone to find some Sumerian evidence. Nothing such exists. I knew that already.

It was invented by a Rig Vedic philosopher called "Dirgatamas". Check out wiki. 

It is clear that the Babylonians adopted this system- because they could have used any other circle, say a circle of 60 degrees or 120 or 720. NO ! They simply chose the same Indian system. Later the Greeks adopted it from Babylonians.


Edited by SuryaVajra - 13-Jun-2013 at 08:41
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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Jun-2013 at 16:39
TRiGoNo=triangle=Romantic&Far away resurrection is embodied by attentive Triangle.
Romantic&Dreamy&Far away resurrection embodies attentive Triangle.Bermudas triangle?!?Big smile
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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Jun-2013 at 23:39
God is bigest inventor people!We are copy&paste machines.Smile
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  Quote SuryaVajra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Jun-2013 at 00:12
Originally posted by medenaywe

TRiGoNo=triangle=Romantic&Far away resurrection is embodied by attentive Triangle.
Romantic&Dreamy&Far away resurrection embodies attentive Triangle.Bermudas triangle?!?Big smile



Sanskrit Tri-gona is triangle . 

Trigonometry
is modified form of sanskrit word "tri(three)+kon(angle)+miti(perimeter)



So what would you bet on? Is the word Greek or Sanskrit?
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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Jun-2013 at 00:53
It is female triangle,Surya Vajra,not sanskrit one.
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  Quote SuryaVajra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Jun-2013 at 01:17
http://www.quia.com/files/quia/users/tcsyoung/funny-calculus-cartoon.gif
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  Quote TheAlaniDragonRising Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Jun-2013 at 04:29
This should be of interest, coming from a period many centuries before the Rigveda. Also from the same period these same people had the circle divided into 360. These people used the sexagesimal system they got from the Sumerians. Follow the link to read of its connection with trigonometry, and Pythagorean theory.

What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.
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  Quote SuryaVajra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Jun-2013 at 04:38
Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

This should be of interest, coming from a period many centuries before the Rigveda.


It is sad that the Vedic people has not left us such archaeological specimens except for the well planned Saraswathy cities. But they have left us the largest literature in human history. And they are replete with all forms of advanced thinking ,reasoning and Mathematical analysis.

Here Alani, you of all people, assume that the Rig Veda was composed around 1500 BC. On what grounds? Because Max Mueller says so?  The Rig Veda is neolithic . It does not have much of the technology described in the other vedas and found in the IVC. It also says that the Saraswathy river flows "from the mountain to the ocean" . Satellite and ground water analysis data shows that the River stopped doing this around 3200 BC. Most importantly, one particular solar Eclipse mentioned by the Philosopher Atri in Mandala 5(HYMN XL. 5. ) has been calculated to  have occurred around 4600 BC.

On the other hand , the 1500 BC dating cannot be maintained by any branch of science. It was never established with proof in the first place.


This outrageous colonial tactic has devastated Indian history. Most of the dates of ancient Bharatha scholars are mere guess work invented to squeeze them into this little 1500 BC date.

For example, Aryabhatta was arbitrarily determined to have lived in 500 CE without any hard evidence, when he has categorically stated himself in his Aryabhattiya that he was born 337 years after Kali Yuga began.

Baudhayana is guessed to have lived in 800 BCE, while the rigorous Mathematical analysis of Sidenberg places him before 2000 BCE. Dr. Abraham Seidenberg, a professor of mathematics at University of California at Berkley proved that the Greek, Indian and Babylonian Mathematics had a common origin and that it is most probably a tradition of Algebraic Geometry. Greeks did not make headway other than in Geometry. Babylonians were proficient in Algebra. The only Tradition on Earth where Algebra and Geometry were interwoven for a practical application was in Vedic India, the Sulva Sutra tradition --for Fire alter construction.Baudhayana was the first to explicitly state the Pythagorean theorem=

The Vedanga Jyotisha was guessed to have been written around 300 BC, but a clear astronomical reference in it puts it to exactly the 16 th century BCE---The very century Mueller gives for Rig Veda.

Witzel ( without any evidence whatsoever) brilliantly guesses that the Shatapatha Brahmana of the Yajur Veda dates to 600 BC. Dozens of astronomical and geological references pins the text between 2900 and 2400 BC.

I have explained all this in a new topic I started. But I did not receive any responses. It was depressing
http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=33784

Rig Veda is definitely older than 3200 BC. If not, you have to explain away the facts I stated .

Circle of 360 degrees in the Rig Veda


http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/origins-zodiac.html

 The number 360 and its related numbers like 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 108, 432 and 720 occur commonly in Vedic symbolism. It is in the hymns of the great Rishi Dirghatamas (RV I.140 – 164) that we have the clearest such references.

Dirghatamas is one of the most famous Rig Vedic Rishis. He was the reputed purohit or chief priest of King Bharata (Aitareya Brahmana VIII.23), one of the earliest kings of the land, from which India as Bharata (the traditional name of the country) was named.


R I.164.48. Twelve are its fellies. The wheel is one. It has three naves. Who has understood it?

        It are held together like spokes the 360, both moving and non-moving.


This perhaps the clearest verse that refers to the zodiac of twelve signs and three hundred and sixty degrees. The same verse also occurs in Atharva Veda (X.8.4).


Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

Also from the same period these same people had the circle divided into 360. These people used the sexagesimal system they got from the Sumerians. Follow the link to read of its connection with trigonometry, and Pythagorean theory.



While the rudiments of the Sexagesimal system is seen in the Rig Veda, and while it has most clearly been exemplified by Aryabhatta, it was the Sumerians who used it for practical applications considerably and used it more seriously

Indians moved on and developed the modern Decimal system with fixed value numerals.

But there is no evidence that the Babylonian tablets influenced the modern world.


History of the Pythagorean theorem

The fire alter construction manual of the Shatapatha Brahmana is the starting point of the sttested history of Mathematics. It contains clear evidence of the use of the Pythagorean triples and 3  close values of Pi along with Algebra and Geometry and much more.

Infact Baudhayana was a commentator of the mathematical portions of this text. Its no surprise that he was the first Mathematician to state the Baudhayana theorem (wrongly called as Pythagoras , no text of whose exists or probably ever existed)

Astronomical evidence proves beyond all reasonably doubt that the SB was composed around 2900 BC( when the Pleiades was in the East as recorded). 

The writers of the Shatapatha Brahmana knew this knowledge. The theorem and its converse were stated precisely by Baudhayanain his Sulba Sutras. We have to realise that the authors of the Sutras incorporated into their books all that was known earlier in addition to their own findings and Baudhayana’s Sulba Sutra the earliest known book on mathematics is no exception.

The word akshnaya occurring in several places of the Taittiriya Samhita,
Krishna Yajur Veda, 5.2.10, 5.2.7, 5.3.5, 6.2.8, 6.3.10 etc., is the hypotenuse of a right
angled triangle or the diagonal of a square or rectangle or trapezium. Shatapatha
Brahmana (3.5.1 to 6) gives a method for constructing a isosceles trapezium
shaped firealtar with parallel sides being 24 and 30 and the height or distance
between the parallel sides being 36. Of course, the description is given in linear
prose without resort to figures.

There is another evidence to support the idea that the authors of Shatapatha Brahmana knew the Pythagorean theorem for integers. As Dutta has noted, the verse 13.8.1.5 suggests that a particular type of altar named paitrki vedi whose corners point to th e four directions must be half the area of the regular square vedi whose four sides point to the four directions. Clearly the Shatapatha Brahmana must have known about the solution to the problem they noted. The Paitrki vedi square is constructed from the regular vedi squares by joining themid points of adjacent sides. The fact that this altar has half the area of the regular square is a clear indication of their knowledge of the Pythagorean triple.The construction of the Paitrki vedi from the regular ved is indicated in Baudhayana Sulba Sutras 3.11

http://www.nandanmenon.com/Mathematics.pdf

http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0301078.pdf


Edited by SuryaVajra - 15-Jun-2013 at 05:06
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  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Jun-2013 at 12:23
Surya, it's commonly accepted that the datiing of 1500 BC is arbitrary.  You can dispute the age a little more gently eh?  There isn't any adversarial attitude coming from anyone here, lighten up.
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  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Jun-2013 at 12:29
BTW, I don't know who invented Trig. but without Trig. tables you couldn't use a "Slide Rule".  And considering that most of our more spectacular advances were done on a Slide Rule [pre computer]  I think the question of who invented the Slide Rule, is more interesting.
 
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  Quote TheAlaniDragonRising Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Jun-2013 at 14:52
SuryaVajra, hopefully you can help me out here. I've been scouting about, looking for references for earlier dates suggested for the Rigveda, like you've been talking about, but I keep on coming up with outcries from those all too happy to tell the world how these Indian neolithic origins for the Rigveda claim are fabrications by Hindu nationalists, and are not backed up by any serious scholars. SuryaVajra, can you help to clear this up for me by naming your reputable scholarly sources for those claims you shared with us?  
What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.
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