Oxford University Press, USA
Trigonometry: A Very Short Introduction
Key Metrics
- Glen Van Brummelen
- Oxford University Press, USA
- Paperback
- 9780198814313
- 6.8 X 4.3 X 0.5 inches
- 0.3 pounds
- Mathematics > Geometry - Differential
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
In this Very Short Introduction Glen Van Brummelen shows how trigonometry connects mathematics to science, and has today become an indispensable tool in predicting cyclic patterns like animal populations and ocean tides. Its historical journey through major cultures such as medieval India and the Islamic World has taken it through disciplines such as geography and even religious practice. Trigonometry has also been a major player in the most startling mathematical developments of the modern world. Its interactions with the concept of infinity led to Taylor and Fourier series, some of the most practical tools of modern science. The birth of complex numbers led to a shocking union of exponential and trigonometric functions, creating the most beautiful formulas and powerful modelling tools in science. Finally, as Van Brummelen shows, trigonometry allows us to explore the strange new worlds of non-Euclidean geometries, opening up bizarre possibilities for the shape of space itself. And indeed, one of those new geometries - spherical - takes us full circle back to ancient Greek astronomers and European navigators, who first used it to chart their ways across the heavens and the earth.
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Author Bio
Glen is a historian of mathematics and astronomy in ancient and medieval cultures, sometimes described as the only historian of trigonometry in the world.
He is author of The Mathematics of the Heavens and the Earth: The Early History of Trigonometry (Princeton, 2009), Heavenly Mathematics: The Forgotten Art of Spherical Trigonometry (Princeton, 2013), and Trigonometry: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2020). He has served twice as president of the Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Mathematics.
Prior to TWU, he was a founding faculty member and mathematics division coordinator of Quest University Canada. He won the Mathematical Association of America’s Haimo Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2016, and the 3M National Teaching Fellowship in 2017.
Research Interests
Glen studies the interactions between mathematics and science in premodern cultures. He is especially interested in trigonometric methods in ancient Greek, medieval Islamic, and medieval European astronomy. Recently he has been working as a member of the European Research Council-funded team ALFA (Alfonsine Astronomy), exploring the development of spherical astronomy in medieval and early Renaissance Europe and its links to Greek and Islamic predecessors.
His research has recently uncovered the beginning of the modern tangent and arc sine functions, and he is currently exploring the origin of our modern decimal positional numeration in the astronomical tables of the 15th century.
Education
Ph.D. (Simon Fraser University), 1993
M.Sc. (Simon Fraser University, 1988)
B.Sc. (University of Alberta), 1986
Source: Trinity Western University
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