11:01 P.M.
Here's my crap math term paper for the semester....
I'm going to fail!!
Can you imagine a world without skyscrapers? Where would we all be if there was no Sears Tower? We would probably be working in a bunch of one-story buildings, and living in one-story houses. I know if it weren�t for skyscrapers my sister would not be going to school for architecture and engineering. She wouldn�t dream of the ability to earn a quarter of a million dollars to design the world�s best building. Would you believe me if I told you that the Greeks came up with an application that we can apply to architecture? In the simplest terms, Trigonometry is the study of the properties of triangles and trigonometric functions and of their functions. It comes from the Greek word meaning, "the measurement of triangles."
There are only three significant definitions in trigonometry. You base everything else around that. If you can comprehend the three definitions, you should have no trouble understanding any other parts of trig.,
****(This is where I put a lamo example to paint the picture....)*****
Just think, without lamps there would be no light, but without trigonometry there would be no architecture, or engineering. Trigonometry is used every day. We could not build a car without trigonometry. We could not build a home. It�s the basis for finding any angle involved (the angle of the sun or moon, or the angle of the cue ball in a game of pool...). Trigonometry is used any time you have to contrast two non-parallel lines (the height of a structure and the height of its shadow, the distance a train is from the crossing and the distance a car is from the crossing).
So many problems cannot easily be solved without trigonometry. Trigonometry affects engineering; waves, navigation, and travel, just to name a few.
Without architecture and engineering there would be no Sears Tower (Chicago), John Hancock (Chicago), Empire State Building (New York), Eiffel Tower (France), Petronas Tower (Kuala Lumpur) or CN Tower (Toronto)!
Navigation and surveying also depend heavily on trigonometry. Without trig. we would have never been able to send our men up to the moon. We need trigonometry to calculate precise launch trajectories, orbital trajectories, and reentry trajectories. We also now depend on our space program for navigation and communication through satellites.
Did you enjoy the last concert you attended? The design of a perfect music hall depends on the use of trigonometry. Much of our knowledge of sound waves, light waves, and seismic waves are explained with trigonometry.
What�s so surprising is that Trigonometry, like other branches of mathematics; its conclusion was not the work of any one man or nation. No one person is responsible for the technology we take for granted today. It�s been a process of collecting information. The study of Trigonometry can be traced as far back as the Babylonians and the Egyptians. That is long before Christ, over 1,000 years before he walked the Earth. Through the known Greeks, and up to Ptolemy, a Greek mathematician and astronomer who lived in Alexandria in the 2nd century AD. Ptolemy's renowned book has always been referred to as ALMAGEST, or the greatest. Since Ptolemy gathered together all trigonometry known up to that time, he made all earlier works archaic. Most high school trig can be found in that his. Whether or not Ptolemy himself discovered any of the results in his Almagest is still a matter of debate.
All in all, trigonometry affects everyone whether they know it or not. Whether you�ve seen a skyscraper, taken a flight on an airplane, enjoyed a great concert, or used a G.P.S. mapping system to help you get you to where you need to be, the application of trigonometry helped to get you there.
