New Trigonometry
Could you imagine trigonometry without sines, cosines or tangents?
Dr Norman Wildberger, a professor at the University of New South Wales, is doing just that. He has rewritten the rules of trigonometry and eliminated sines, cosines and tangents.
New trigonometry is a sign of the times
Dr Wildberger has replaced traditional ideas of angles and distance with new concepts called “spread” and “quadrance”.
These new concepts mean that trigonometric problems can be done with algebra,” says Wildberger, an associate professor of mathematics at UNSW.
“Rational trigonometry replaces sines, cosines, tangents and a host of other trigonometric functions with elementary arithmetic.”
“Now there is a better way. Once you learn the five main rules of rational trigonometry and how to simply apply them, you realise that classical trigonometry represents a misunderstanding of geometry.”
Interesting… Doubtful that it’ll catch on anytime soon, though, if at all.
Loading ...
an unused console won't have any problems!
Sep 19th, 2005 at 10:08:31
Dang, that stinks actually. Trig was one of those maths that came to me easily. I wrote programs for my TI-81 calculator to solve for angle/side things like Side-Angle-Side and a bunch of other trig equations.
Oh well, anything to make math easier…but I think the youth of today will not benefit from easier math since it may not make you think as hard.
Sep 19th, 2005 at 15:49:03
Does this mean we won’t be able to help our kids do their math b/c we won’t know any of the terms they’ll use?
Sep 24th, 2005 at 23:25:45
I actually read the first chapter of the book at http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~norman/book.htm and fully understood it. It is actually much simpler than classical trig.
I’ll be contacting the State Education board in Ohio and asking them to review the material. Anything we can do to lower math-study frustration is secondary education should at a minimum be looked at.