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#1 2005-09-16 18:53:15

Chris
Assistant Professor
From: Longwood University
Registered: 2004-09-30
Posts: 754
Website

Is trigonometry obsolete?

Read this article I posted on the main page and let me know what you think:

http://www.ilovephysics.com/archives/20 … -obsolete/

Read through Chapter 1 of this guy's book:

http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/%7Enorman/ … apter1.pdf

I find his method intriguing, especially since it requires no sines and cosines. I'm going to spend a little time seeing how this approach could be used for some basic 2D motion problems and force vector problems is physics.


Chemists are physicists who don't do math. smile

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#2 2005-09-18 21:09:00

dgeek42
Junior Member
Registered: 2005-07-09
Posts: 15

Re: Is trigonometry obsolete?

Even if his method is found to be useful, that really doesn't remove the need for physicists, or really any scientist/engineer, to know about sines and cosines. You can change your metrics, thus obviating one basic use of trig functions, but you can't change the need of our society for the sorts of things Fourier analysis gets applied to. Sines and cosines are much more important as the basis functions used in Fourier series/transforms than they are as logarithms dressed up in trigonometric clothing.

Last edited by dgeek42 (2005-09-18 21:10:45)

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