ABSTRACT
Trigonometry is a very beautiful offshoot of geometry whose seeds were in Greek mathematics but came to fruition with Arab mathematicians and Western European scholars. Basically, trigonometry is the study of triangles and found early application in surveying, but later in areas such as mechanics, calculus and electronics.
The basic trigonometric functions such as sin, cos and tan occur all over mathematics and its applications and also in everyday life in situations such as planetary motion, the rise and fall of the tides, seasons of the year, pendulum clocks and many other examples.
The great Euler (–) held by some to be the greatest mathematician of all time, had one of the most sensational lateral thoughts ever. Spotting a resemblance between infinite series, he showed that e ( ix ) = cos x + i sin x, where i 2 = −1. This led to the most incredible equation in all of mathematics e ( i (π)) + 1 = 0, connecting in a very simple way five of the most important numbers in the subject, e, i, π, 1 and 0.
