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Trigonometry..Trigonometry Everywhere!

 A colleague of mine once told me that when he passes through the road in front of the airport, he literally stops there and watches the Airplane takeoff. He gets intrigued viewing the mesmerizing scenery of the Airplane taking off. 

Perhaps, you are also like my colleague- who loves watching airplanes takeoff and landing. So here I am, asking you a question! Don’t freak out- this is not hard!!

 Have you ever wondered how Aviation Technology manages to make smooth flight takeoff and landing?

 Yes? Then it’s awesome! 

No? Don’t worry I am here! 

In Aviation technology, the wind plays a crucial role in when and how the flight will take off or land. To estimate the actual direction on which the flight should travel, we can take the account of the direction and speed of the wind, and the speed and altitude of the flight at a particular time. Then after we can use basic TRIGONOMETRY to calculate the actual direction of the Airplane. 

For instance, you saw an Airplane which is travelling at 370 miles per hour at 8000 feet above the ground level, and the wind is blowing due to the east at 17 miles per hour. To estimate the right direction of the Airplane having this information, we could use TRIGONOMETRIC RATIOS to calculate the third side of the triangle. That will eventually give us our result! Interesting? Well, there are more to come!

 Trigonometry is simply the study of Triangles. It shows the relationship between sides of a triangle and its angles. Several ancient civilizations- including Indian, Egyptian, Babylonian- have contributed to the development of this field. It all started from the 1800 BCE in Ancient Babylon where the Plimpton Tablet- that contains a table of Pythagorean numbers satisfying the sides of a right angled triangle- was introduced. Following the tablet, The Rhind Papyrus that features the problems related to Pyramids also came into the play in 1550 BCE.

 Do you know Greeks were fond of stars and planets? Well, those stars became the main reason for the commencement to explore Trigonometry. The Trigonometry that we use today was developed by a Greek Mathematician, Hipparchus who constructed the table of values for trigonometric functions. His work on the chords- sides of the triangle- got improvised by other Greek Mathematicians such as Manelaus and Ptolemy for use in Astronomy. Ptolemy introduced his book named “Almagest '' that also provided a great work to the subject. 

The trigonometric function, sine, was introduced by a Indian Astronomer, Arya Bhatiyaa who developed the Sine tables. His work was further spreaded to Islamic World where its mathematicians developed other trigonometric functions like Sine, Cosine, Tangent, Cosecant, Secant, and Cotangent.

 Started from 1800 BCE, modern Trigonometry has expanded its horizon to make impacts in today's world. If someone asks me hey hey hey, where do you think Trigonometry can be used then my only answer will be Everywhere!

 You want to find the height of a building. You can use trigonometry. First know the distance you are standing from the bottom of that building, and the angle of elevation. Then just use the Trigonometric Functions to calculate the height. That’s it! 

You want to design the slanted roof of your house, or you want to calculate the exact length that fits in the top of your house, then it’s for sure to use the Trigonometric Functions to do that. You want them to measure fields, inclination angle, or the height and width of your roof. 

You could also see the use of Trigonometry in Physics. For instance, you throw a ball to space and you want to know the velocity of the ball when it just hits the ground. It might seem tempting that use of Trigonometry is very less there, but if you think for a while then you can know it’s impact is huge to solve the problem. So, again, Trigonometry wins. 

You will not believe me but Trigonometry is used in solving Crime!(yeah, really!) It is used to know, for instance, the angle of elevation, or speed of bullet while the bullet was fired. 

The use and impact of Trigonometry is huge in today’s world. It is used in marine technology. Calculus was developed from Trigonometry. Knowingly or unknowingly you are using the Trigonometric Functions to run your daily life. Have a look over it!

-Nikhil Aryal

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