Trigonometry
4.1 What Use is Trigonometry?
Trigonometry, as its Greek and Latin roots suggest, is primarily the study of triangles. As we will see, circles also play a very prominent role. Trigonometric functions are, in fact, sometimes designated as circular functions. Figure 4.1 suggests how a clever caveman might determine the height y of a cliff by measuring the distance x to its base and the angle 
that he has to look upward. This could be done by making a scale drawing but, more elegantly, using trigonometry, the height y is equal to .
Figure 4.1 Stone-age trigonometry.
4.2 Geometry of Triangles
In this section we review some ...
Get Guide to Essential Math, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
