Talk:History of trigonometry

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Mathematics rating:	B Class	Mid Priority	Field: Basics (historical)
Please update this rating as the article progresses, or if the rating is inaccurate. Click to show/hide comments. Please add to or update the comments to suggest improvements to the article. I hope this article and every articles not contained with unrenponsible claims....I saw there many claims without evidences especially about indian contributions. the facts are almost all Islamic sciences that contribute to europe, and almost all arabic text books that been translated into Latin etc....if in some Islamic books there is a scientific knowledge from indian so it must be prove it. is there any indian science books that safe until today ? there are many evidences of Islamic sciences...that's we need to know. so please don't claims without evidences...we don't need a story or fake....we need a cold facts. Shatree (talk) 06:09, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Disputed

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)

[edit] UNDISPUTABLE

Steven this article was indeed incorrect but the page is been restructured & now it seems to be correct.Just i want to say to u that what ever u have said regarding only this article is correct.But i want to say u tht your view regarding the Indian mathematics is incorrect.It is true that Hipparchus & ptolemy were the first to bring about developement in Trigonometry After that Indian came to bring developement in trigonometry which was significant & mainly was not influenced by ptolemy's work.Just to make your info more correct that Ptolemy's & greek mathematicians works were on chord functions & Indian mathematician's works were based on sine functions.So it cannot be said that Indian mathematicians were influenced by ptolemy.Indian mathematicians prepared their own sine table & world knows that very well.Because sine is the oldest trigonometric functions & were originated by Indian mathematicians.Just make more research on this Origin of sine functions u will know the truth.One more time truely speaking "Hipparchus" is the creator of Trigonometry Because the earliest one is the father.Hipparchus is truely said as the father of Trigonometry.I THINK NOW WE SHOULD REMOVE THIS FROM DISPUTATIONS.

202.179.64.9 16:27, 4 November 2006 (UTC)Aaditya D.Singh

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:History_of_trigonometric_functions"

Thanks for fixing the BC/AD mistake. I changed the disputed tag to a POV tag, since I don't see any obvious factual errors (although I'm skeptical of any claims sourced to the Peacock book because of the criticisms cited above), but the article still seems woefully unbalanced.

I didn't say that Indian and Arab mathematicians didn't make significant contributions (e.g. it's clear that our modern definition of sine as the half-chord instead of the chord, and even the name "sine", comes from India...and in fact I was the first person to add this information to Wikipedia a year or two ago), just that the contributions of Greek and (later) European mathematicians are currently grossly understated in the article.

You appear to have no evidence to support your assertion that there were no significant Hellenistic influences on the Indian work 600 years later; as far as I can tell, professional historians of mathematics seem to disagree. (Note the article still makes the biased, and arguably incorrect claim that "the first significant developments of trigonometry were in India".)

By the way, if "u" take a little more time to write like a literate adult, it will be easier to take you seriously. —Steven G. Johnson 19:21, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

PS. What is the evidence that Bhaskara II treated trigonometry as a subject in its own right, not as an adjunct to astronomy etc.? According to the Boyer reference, the first person to do so was Regiomontanus and that's what the Wikipedia article originally said, and a user later moved this statement to apply to Bhaskara without citing any source. Euler's contributions are also understated by the deprecating words "in Europe" added to his contributions, as he seems to be the first person anywhere to define trig functions by their infinite series and to analytically continue them to the complex plane (this is what is meant by "analytic" treatment of a function, in case you don't know math). The way that this article has evolved, with sourced statements about one person moved to unsourced statements about other people, does not inspire trust. —Steven G. Johnson 19:31, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] OK NOW

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)Aaditya D.Singh

[edit] Undisputable

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) 15:25, 3 December 2006 (UTC). 202.179.64.9 15:30, 3 December 2006 (UTC)Aaditya D.Singh

[edit] The Sulba Sutras

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 sinθ, (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)

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 sinθ, (and that too a little redundantly since the angle is 45 degrees and he is really talking about the diagonal of a square).

I was about to suggest OR violation as are apparent by constant vandalism you have caused in Indian mathematics related articles but then "The whole of Indian geometry and trignometry is dominated by the theorum of the suqare and the diagonal." (Geometry in Ancient and Mediaeval India By T.A. Sarasvati Amma page 58). _{Freedom skies| talk}  21:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

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 and therefore you know about trigonometric functions! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:52, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rename article "History of trigonometry"

Hello,
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? selfworm^Talk) 22:16, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

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". selfworm^Talk) 02:22, 12 August 2007 (UTC)