Beautiful Trigonometry - Numberphile

Sdílet
Vložit
  • čas přidán 15. 06. 2020
  • Featuring Ben Sparks.
    Check out Brilliant (get 20% off their premium service): brilliant.org/numberphile (sponsor)
    More links & stuff in full description below ↓↓↓
    Catch a more in-depth interview with Ben on our Numberphile Podcast: • The Happy Twin (with B...
    Ben's website: www.bensparks.co.uk
    More Numberphile videos with Ben Sparks: bit.ly/Sparks_Playlist
    Explore this topic further with this Geogebra file from Ben: www.geogebra.org/m/S2W46Thv
    Catch Ben on the latest Numberphile Podcast: • The Happy Twin (with B...
    More podcast episodes: bit.ly/numberphile_podcast
    Numberphile is supported by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI): bit.ly/MSRINumberphile
    We are also supported by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science. www.simonsfoundation.org/outr...
    And support from Math For America - www.mathforamerica.org/
    NUMBERPHILE
    Website: www.numberphile.com/
    Numberphile on Facebook: / numberphile
    Numberphile tweets: / numberphile
    Subscribe: bit.ly/Numberphile_Sub
    Videos by Brady Haran
    Animated by Pete McPartlan
    Patreon: / numberphile
    Numberphile T-Shirts and Merch: teespring.com/stores/numberphile
    Brady's videos subreddit: / bradyharan
    Brady's latest videos across all channels: www.bradyharanblog.com/
    Sign up for (occasional) emails: eepurl.com/YdjL9
  • Věda a technologie

Komentáře • 1,3K

  • @numberphile
    @numberphile  Před 4 lety +107

    Catch a more in-depth interview with Ben on our Numberphile Podcast: czcams.com/video/-tGni9ObJWk/video.html

    • @JPEight
      @JPEight Před 3 lety +4

      Numberphile Late to the party I know, but the final set of animations is how AC motors work, as well as field oriented control for brushless DC motors. With three intersecting lines it shows the relationship of three phase mains power. Most motors only use 3 phases, but multiphase motors do exist. Would have been cool to explore in further detail - maybe a future video?

    • @leovargas9480
      @leovargas9480 Před 2 lety +1

      captions in spanish please!

  • @spacemanspiff2137
    @spacemanspiff2137 Před 4 lety +1478

    This video needs to be shown in every high school trig class

    • @numberphile
      @numberphile  Před 4 lety +168

      Yes please. :)

    •  Před 4 lety +58

      I can still remember memorizing sin and cos values when I was in high school almost 30 years ago. It would have been so much easier to have been taught circle functions and tau. Why memorize when it's so easy to derive. So much time wasted 😢. At least younger learners will have an easier time.
      That said, I thought I would show these things to my kids and they will see the awesomeness, but I've had bad experiences so far with responses of "that's not what the teacher expects", and it makes me very sad 😞.

    • @VirtuelleWeltenMitKhan
      @VirtuelleWeltenMitKhan Před 4 lety +37

      @ "that's not what the teacher expects" that is the dark side about teaching

    • @TheEnderLeader1
      @TheEnderLeader1 Před 4 lety +24

      @ it's a sad time we live in where surprising the "teacher" is seen as a bad thing.
      I never took Lockhart seriously until I tried to help my incredibly creative little brother with his homework, and saw all his mathematical imagination completely stamped out of him by modern maths education.

    • @chiiing8288
      @chiiing8288 Před 4 lety +9

      i wish my teacher showed me this. before this video i think of trigonometry as a formula that just works. Now i understand it a bit more.

  • @bgezal
    @bgezal Před 4 lety +1565

    "and I don't want to give too much away"
    Brady: So I'll just spoil it in the thumbnail and intro then.

    • @numberphile
      @numberphile  Před 4 lety +782

      Ben doesn't have access to the graphs which show CZcams viewer attention span - Brady does!

    • @HasekuraIsuna
      @HasekuraIsuna Před 4 lety +67

      @@numberphile
      Oh, I'm sad to hear that. I thought Numberphile's views were 90% subscriber users who watches everything. : (

    • @bgezal
      @bgezal Před 4 lety +20

      @@numberphile the Algorithm...

    • @badmanjones179
      @badmanjones179 Před 4 lety +27

      @@HasekuraIsuna were drawing in new fans, get them all addicted to math, then they become full length viewers

    • @ivanjones6957
      @ivanjones6957 Před 4 lety +28

      to 10 anime betrayals

  • @wolfelkan8183
    @wolfelkan8183 Před 4 lety +1593

    "I think [trigonometry] is the worst-named topic in mathematics"
    Imaginary numbers would like a word...

    • @francisluglio6611
      @francisluglio6611 Před 4 lety +28

      Imaginary numbers don't have to be a topic. They just have to be numbers. It's up to the speaker to set it as a topic.

    • @danaclass
      @danaclass Před 4 lety +84

      Aren't all numbers imaginary?!

    • @janschaffer5042
      @janschaffer5042 Před 4 lety +31

      @@danaclass Aren't all imaginations numerical? :O xD

    • @joaoc6920
      @joaoc6920 Před 4 lety +13

      @@danaclass I mean vision is technically, an elaborate elusion. So sure why not.

    • @flexico64
      @flexico64 Před 4 lety +2

      My thoughts EXACTLY

  • @jgg75
    @jgg75 Před 4 lety +366

    I learned more trigonometry in this 12-minute video than I have in 40 years...

  • @JarHead54321
    @JarHead54321 Před 4 lety +929

    Those animations are mesmerizing

    • @phatkin
      @phatkin Před 4 lety +11

      bruh when did I leave this comment

    • @warioseggs
      @warioseggs Před 4 lety

      @Multorum Unum fair

    • @alexcrespo3252
      @alexcrespo3252 Před 4 lety +4

      You could make one yourself, just go on desmos and the description for a point revolving around the surface of a circle is (sin a, cos a) With that info you can add them up in specific ways and have lots of fun. I hope you try it our

    • @davecrupel2817
      @davecrupel2817 Před 4 lety

      @@phatkin 3 days ago

    • @puzzLEGO
      @puzzLEGO Před 4 lety

      I agree

  • @celewign
    @celewign Před 4 lety +496

    Something about the patient, thoughtful explanation combined with insightful interview questions combined with excellent, simple animations make this the best explanation of trig I’ve ever seen.

    • @numberphile
      @numberphile  Před 4 lety +70

      Wow, thanks.

    • @ivanjones6957
      @ivanjones6957 Před 4 lety +6

      agreed

    • @arcanics1971
      @arcanics1971 Před 4 lety +14

      I couldn't agree more! 30 years after I leave school and suddenly it all makes sense!

    • @janderkran
      @janderkran Před 4 lety +1

      So true!

    • @ThatOpalGuy
      @ThatOpalGuy Před 2 lety +1

      It's still beyond the understanding of a certain segment of our society though, and that's sad.

  • @arcanics1971
    @arcanics1971 Před 4 lety +442

    This just made some of the bits of trig I just didn't get fall into place. Ben Sparks needs to rewrite how schools teach trig! That's was brilliantly explained!

  • @grizzlygamer8891
    @grizzlygamer8891 Před 4 lety +905

    This annoys me quite a lot. I'm 36. I got great grades for Chemistry, Physics and Biology at GCSE but did abysmally in my maths exam and the best grade I ever achieved is a D. The exams at the time were full of trigonometry and I have NEVER been able to get my head around that one thing all my life.
    Seeing it applied to circles, rather than triangles has literally allowed me to understand the subject in the length of this video.
    I wish you were my GCSE maths teacher 😂

    • @stanstanstan
      @stanstanstan Před 4 lety +47

      When it comes to school level mathematics, your success is mostly based on repetition of work, not understanding. But yes, this is a brilliant visualization of the trigonometric functions.

    • @evilotto9200
      @evilotto9200 Před 4 lety +26

      @@bregottmannen2706 "SohCahToa"- not all teachers teach
      some just need you to be able to pass a standardized test at semester's end

    • @scottriley5141
      @scottriley5141 Před 4 lety +18

      I am a maths teacher and hate that the curriculum focuses on triangles simply because that's what they are applied to in the syllabus.
      Circles are brought in when learning about the graphs but it's constantly compared to the triangles (because they've already studied them).
      It would be so much better (and elegant) the other way round but everyone learns about the triangles at GCSE and only students sitting the higher papers learn about the graphs.

    • @codyhannahmary83
      @codyhannahmary83 Před 4 lety +8

      I also wish my maths teacher had described things like this!! I failed Maths and stopped it after 5th form in NZ.
      But this is beautiful!!

    • @louisvictor3473
      @louisvictor3473 Před 4 lety +9

      @@scottriley5141 Porque no los dos? The triangles and the circles in this case are inherently connected when you're using the cartesian plane or space (you can always draw the triangles for any point in a circle, you can always draw the full circle from a right triangle without further information, which is why they're equivalent). The problem is that the syllabus and education in general don't exist to teach people to understand what they're doing, just to be able to memorize how the tool operates. But when people understand the relationships, they understand where things come from and the line of reasoning that leads to it, you see the triangles on the circles, you see the circles around the triangles, you can see all the other forms you can derive from the same information because you understand. That is why no curriculum anywhere puts much attention in showing things like this, the beauty of pure mathematics because "it is not useful [to make a baseline employee, the curricula current purpose, sadly]".

  • @bharathir330
    @bharathir330 Před 4 lety +96

    "It was a huge relief to me too that the word tangent wasn't a coincidence with the other definition of tangent, which touches the circle" 😇

  • @PaveDearce
    @PaveDearce Před 4 lety +207

    4:50 In fact the name cosine comes from the fact that the **co**sine is the sine of the **co**mplement angle.
    Two angles are complementary when their sum is 90 degrees. So 30 degrees and 60 degrees are complementary angles.
    The cosine of 30 degrees is the sine of its complement angle. That is, the cosine of 30 degrees is the sine of 60 degrees.

    • @ivanjones6957
      @ivanjones6957 Před 4 lety +5

      interesting

    • @angelmendez-rivera351
      @angelmendez-rivera351 Před 4 lety +9

      Yes. Hence the origin of the cofunction identities sin(π/2 - x) = cos(x), sec(π/2 - x) = csc(x), and tan(π/2 - x) = cot(x). π/2 = 90°. This also motivates the conjugate identities sin(x)·sec(x) = tan(x) and cos(x)·csc(x) = cot(x).

    • @orichalchromee88
      @orichalchromee88 Před 3 lety +2

      Ah yes big brain you have

    • @keonscorner516
      @keonscorner516 Před rokem

      _82_

  • @925NC
    @925NC Před 4 lety +130

    One of the best Numberphile videos I've ever seen. Coming from a middle/high school math teacher. Thank you! Keep up the great work!

  • @boRegah
    @boRegah Před 4 lety +77

    My overall happiness with maths in school would have increased dramatically if this channel existed (and was in German) back then.

  • @the_venomous_viper1234
    @the_venomous_viper1234 Před 4 lety +63

    That 3D graph with the spiral changed my view of Trigonometry - truly beautiful. Love the work as always :)

    • @numberphile
      @numberphile  Před 4 lety +6

      Thanks - appreciate it.

    • @FYTClips.
      @FYTClips. Před 4 lety +2

      Ikr, my jaw literally dropped to the floor when the changed the perspective

    • @elimelvin2988
      @elimelvin2988 Před 4 lety +3

      I can finally see the dual particle/wave nature of light in this!

    • @Nyth63
      @Nyth63 Před 4 lety +1

      Helix

    • @nielsen425
      @nielsen425 Před 4 lety +3

      Numberphile
      If you replace the y-axis with the imaginary you’ll have Euler’s Identity. I know you know that. It would have been a great comment to make during the video.
      I also believe mentioning the deep connection to light propagation by allowing the x-axis to be a voltage field and the y-axis a magnetic field yields the way light works propagates would have been relevant.
      Oh, and when you showed the three axis’s with three dots rotating you had three phase power which is how the power grids around the world distribute electricity. Again, you showed the answer without mentioning the topic.
      Totally fun. Maybe I need to learn Visual Basic better to be able to reproduce your animation here.
      How many of the trig identities make more sense on this graph? I’m thinking they may all be here, but several of them seem to just fall out.

  • @sbmathsyt5306
    @sbmathsyt5306 Před 4 lety +129

    wow! This is a great example of the beauty in maths. Great teaching with a great explanation of the animation. Loved it.

    • @numberphile
      @numberphile  Před 4 lety +23

      Thank you for watching it.

    • @seeseefok7659
      @seeseefok7659 Před 4 lety +2

      @@numberphile I agree :D this is beautiful and well made, I love this channel!

  • @DaGizmoGuy
    @DaGizmoGuy Před 4 lety +37

    4:57 I *wish* I had seen this when I was still at school. Why was trigonometry never explained to me like this? It suddenly makes total sense now!

    • @jadenmolloy4830
      @jadenmolloy4830 Před 4 lety +6

      Because at school you don't need to know it and it'll probably just confuse kids. The sad thing about school is you only learn the basic application of things, not the actual mechanics and processes behind them

    • @soupisfornoobs4081
      @soupisfornoobs4081 Před 3 lety +1

      @@jadenmolloy4830 yeah, it's *general* education, higher education is for the real learning and school's just the basics

  • @arifahmad-7261
    @arifahmad-7261 Před 4 lety +46

    *the definition i like most is: oscillation is the projection of uniform circular motion on the diameter of circle*

    • @hoola_amigos
      @hoola_amigos Před 4 lety +3

      the simplicity is amazing!

    • @robinkovacic7961
      @robinkovacic7961 Před 4 lety +2

      @@hoola_amigos I agree, just realized what trigonometry is really about

    • @deactivated.1254
      @deactivated.1254 Před 4 lety +1

      AWAZ2
      I dont if what you say is true- for all I know is that you're saying big smart-sounding words

    • @mr.klunee4103
      @mr.klunee4103 Před 4 lety +2

      A lot of math concepts come to ife and thus make more since in physics. I.e. calculus made much more sense to me when I saw how it applied to kinematics

    • @arifahmad-7261
      @arifahmad-7261 Před 4 lety

      @@mr.klunee4103 yes✔

  • @jonopriestley9461
    @jonopriestley9461 Před 4 lety +253

    Ben: 'Nothing is moving in a circle'
    Me: 'Wait, so how does the earth spin?
    Ben: 'Each one of these dots is moving in a straight line.'
    Me: 'Oh, right. Context.'

    • @LeventK
      @LeventK Před 4 lety +1

      😂♻️

    • @grizzlygamer8891
      @grizzlygamer8891 Před 4 lety +22

      Careful there... We don't need to be spending the next year explaining to flat earthers how this is in fact NOT evidence that the world isn't a globe 😂

    • @GregorShapiro
      @GregorShapiro Před 4 lety +3

      The Earth is flat so there is no reason for anything other than straight lines!

    • @wavywomby263
      @wavywomby263 Před 4 lety +4

      The is only works if the radius of the moving "circle" is equal to the radius of its orbit so no

    • @CandidDate
      @CandidDate Před 4 lety +5

      I see a new understanding of General Relativity in the making. There is nothing that doesn't move in a straight line, relatively.

  • @BrandonDoran00
    @BrandonDoran00 Před 4 lety +66

    I love how 10 minutes of video can give me a real understanding of what sin, cos, and tan *are* when none of my high school teaches ever thought to try. No wonder I hated trig...

    • @Jinsun202
      @Jinsun202 Před rokem

      Yeah, because your teacher never had to spend any time/focus on behaviour management, admin, catering to different levels of understanding of students, time reatraints, did they? And you always paid attention 100% of the time, didn't you?
      Funny how commenters almost always take the opportunity to blame teachers, thus abdicating any responsibility themselves.

    • @BrandonDoran00
      @BrandonDoran00 Před rokem +1

      @@Jinsun202 What is blud waffling about?

  • @randomjin9392
    @randomjin9392 Před 4 lety +183

    A straight line is just a circle with an infinite radius

    • @F1fan4eva
      @F1fan4eva Před 4 lety +39

      Random Jin a circle, in turn, is just an ellipse with 0 eccentricity

    • @harry_page
      @harry_page Před 4 lety +32

      @@F1fan4eva An ellipse, in turn, is just a conic section with eccentricity between 0 and 1

    • @alaanasr7505
      @alaanasr7505 Před 4 lety +22

      @@harry_page a conic section, in turn, is just a curve obtained as the intersection of the surface of a cone with a plane

    • @Killerthealmighty
      @Killerthealmighty Před 4 lety +20

      What if a straight line is just a conic section with INFINITE ECCENTRICITY

    • @alaanasr7505
      @alaanasr7505 Před 4 lety +14

      ​@@Killerthealmighty It is true. We just loop back to where we started. both eccentricity 0 and infinity gives us a line

  • @xaytana
    @xaytana Před 4 lety +8

    6:37 "What's a tangent?"
    Perfect answer would've been, "What you're doing right now."

  • @sphakamisozondi
    @sphakamisozondi Před 4 lety +11

    OMG!!! This video just blew my mind. The trig functions make sense in relation to a circle. Dude you just made me unlearn what have learned about these functions for real.

  • @FreshBeatles
    @FreshBeatles Před 4 lety +48

    this cleared up so much missing understanding

  • @koolguy728
    @koolguy728 Před 4 lety +10

    "And nothing here is moving in a circle" ... I mean except for the invisible point that you're using to trace out the coordinates of the dots :P

  • @numberphile
    @numberphile  Před 4 lety +126

    Some left over 'Pieces of Pi' are available if you'd like to support Numberphile (these are from the collection that was sent to Patreon supporters earlier this year): posh-as-cushions.myshopify.com/products/a-piece-of-pi
    Piece #1 is on ebay: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203022020704

    • @informationparadox387
      @informationparadox387 Před 4 lety +5

      The animations were awesome!😍👌

    • @ivanjones6957
      @ivanjones6957 Před 4 lety +3

      I understand 'trigonometry' better than ever before!

    • @Manoj_b
      @Manoj_b Před 4 lety

      What is the relation between (ΠXi^xi(i,1,n)) to (ΠXi(i,1,n))^y ,where, n is Z+ ,and y =f(x).?

    • @TheDannyHamilton
      @TheDannyHamilton Před 4 lety

      What’s the missing sin()-like function called?? It’s clear when you overlay sin() and cos() that they are out of phase, but there’s space left over for one more phase to perfectly fit in between?!?!

    • @ankonpaul8991
      @ankonpaul8991 Před 4 lety +1

      May I ask what program Ben is using to create these animations

  • @jochemdejong3406
    @jochemdejong3406 Před 4 lety +18

    That 3D animation really is beautiful

  • @aldagle
    @aldagle Před 3 lety +2

    0:13 to see straight lines concentrate on one ball moving up and down and then the other and look in the centre
    To see the circle concentrate on the invisible line between the circles

  • @Yotanido
    @Yotanido Před 4 lety +7

    I actually never learnt trig in school. The first time I ever used trig functions was when I wanted to draw a circle on a screen.
    X axis is the cosine of t, Y axis is the sine if t. Now just take equidistant values of t between 0 and tau and you're golden. More values for higher resolution.

  • @brankooffice
    @brankooffice Před 4 lety +69

    This should be the first thing shown in school when trigonometry is mentioned.

    • @pendragon7600
      @pendragon7600 Před 4 lety +6

      No, it shouldn't.

    • @ivanjones6957
      @ivanjones6957 Před 4 lety +5

      @@pendragon7600 yes, it should

    • @SSM24_
      @SSM24_ Před 4 lety +17

      Maybe not this _exact_ video, since it definitely assumes some prior understanding of trigonometry, but the visualizations definitely.

    • @ivanjones6957
      @ivanjones6957 Před 4 lety +10

      @@SSM24_ true yes. but this animation is easy to grasp for visual learners with minimal equations to have to learn.

    • @B3Band
      @B3Band Před 4 lety +9

      It's a great way to pretend you understand trig without actually learning anything. This is much better appreciated AFTER you actually learn the concept and use it properly.

  • @idkusername2981
    @idkusername2981 Před 4 lety +43

    10:08 this tells me a lot of why my math teachers tend to make really hard tests...

    • @alexismandelias
      @alexismandelias Před 4 lety +9

      They make hard tests so you have a reason to study. I'd bet you would open the book once if you didn't have to study for a test

    • @hybmnzz2658
      @hybmnzz2658 Před 3 lety

      You are the same type of person to get a bad grade in optimization problems in calculus then say "we did not learn this! You gotta spoon feed me!". And then you realize its useful, applied math.

  • @haydenperkes8974
    @haydenperkes8974 Před 4 lety +6

    This taught me more than 3 years of highschool. I want more. I think you healed my soul with those mathematical animations. I actually hate how much I liked that. This should be a series. Just mathematical animations and the proofs hidden within.

  • @bojandude
    @bojandude Před 4 lety +7

    I've watched Numberphile for years, and although I've always enjoyed and learned something from the videos, it's never impacted me quite like this. The simple look behind what sine and cosine really are was a wonderful experience.
    Thank you.

  • @vikraal6974
    @vikraal6974 Před 4 lety +34

    The fact that ramanujan could see all possible combinations of these functions in his head still boggles me

    • @ZachGatesHere
      @ZachGatesHere Před 4 lety +5

      I'm more than a little confident a lot of the Ramanujan stories are legends. This idea that he could just "see" everything is kinda silly. That he just knew strings of trivia for every single number, etc.

    • @MrHrman12
      @MrHrman12 Před 4 lety +5

      @@ZachGatesHere there are some really interesting video's on youtube about savant's who 'see' numbers and can do crazy sums in their head, maybe that is related, you should check it out if you haven't already.

    • @vikraal6974
      @vikraal6974 Před 4 lety +2

      @@ZachGatesHere when it comes to trigonometry he was a beast. Before he read Carr's book he had mastered Looney's trigonometry. He didn't steady Euclid's elements so I can't be sure of his mastery of geometry and in general but there is no doubt about his understanding of circular functions. Just look at his approximation of pi.

    • @jamirimaj6880
      @jamirimaj6880 Před 3 lety

      @@ZachGatesHere not "see", but "imagine". although Ram sadly is not that great at explaining the theories behind it. He's really just your more-than-average smart kid in class who understands stuff and can solve puzzles, but has a hard time in explaining the process behind. Don't get me wrong, Ramanujan is still a big part of why modern life in general exists, that's his legacy.

  • @greensponge6538
    @greensponge6538 Před 4 lety +5

    These animations are so spectacularly beautiful, all the jigsaw pieces just flitted right together 😭! Pretty exceptional stuff, wish school taught us this way.
    Never stop these videos coming, your work is amazing!!

  • @1Osama9
    @1Osama9 Před 4 lety +74

    ““A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.” A mathematician apology Hardy

  • @rudranil-c
    @rudranil-c Před 4 lety +5

    Of all the Numberphile's brilliant mathematician talks, I love Ben Sparks the most. Every single episode is fascinating.

  • @atomiccompiler9495
    @atomiccompiler9495 Před 4 lety +6

    In case anybody wants to read more about this, the yellow circle and the unit circle make what mathematicians call a “Tusi couple”, and in fact, it does have some applications, especially in astronomy.

    • @TheeDixieFlatline
      @TheeDixieFlatline Před 2 lety

      Just what I signed in to say. I first ran across it in a book on Arabic astronomy.

  • @diegonals
    @diegonals Před 4 lety +167

    "Nothing is moving in a circle"
    *Sad carousel noises*

    • @ivanjones6957
      @ivanjones6957 Před 4 lety +3

      nice

    • @0LoneTech
      @0LoneTech Před 4 lety +6

      But it is moving in a circular reference frame cycloid, in the corner case where it became a straight line (rolling diameter equals enclosing radius). Another corner case is where it becomes immobile, because the rolling and enclosing circles are equal. All the other cases are actually useful in designing e.g. cycloidal or planetary gears!

    • @diegonals
      @diegonals Před 4 lety +3

      @@0LoneTech Haha circles go woosh

    • @ivanjones6957
      @ivanjones6957 Před 4 lety +2

      @@diegonals mega nice

    • @DqwertyC
      @DqwertyC Před 4 lety +5

      But if you put a couple carousels on a larger carousel, then timed the speeds right, could you get all the seats to just be moving in straight lines?

  • @ThisNameWasTaken100
    @ThisNameWasTaken100 Před 4 lety +4

    After twelve years of school, four years of university and eight as an engineer, I’ve not thought of the ‘trig’ functions like that. This is why I subscribed to Numberphile!

  • @michaelgian2649
    @michaelgian2649 Před 4 lety +1

    2:22 Trammel of Archimedes is mentioned (somewhat in passing). This is a topic worthy of visual elaboration.
    The trace at the midpoint is shown, and it, indeed, is a circle. Both semi-axes are equal (thus = radius).
    The family of ellipses created as the trace point is varied, including onto the trammel's extension, I find of interest.

  • @IllidanS4
    @IllidanS4 Před 4 lety +42

    Considering the name "trigonometry", other languages use the term "goniometry" more commonly, moving from triangles to just angles.

    • @azureabyss538
      @azureabyss538 Před 4 lety +3

      Trigonometry originated at the Indian subcontinent receiving important influences from the Middle East and it picked it up various implants in its name meanwhile.

    • @silkwesir1444
      @silkwesir1444 Před 4 lety +3

      @@azureabyss538 it may very well have originated on the Indian subcontinent, but the _name_ "Trigonometry" sure didn't. That word is as Greek as you can get.

    • @azureabyss538
      @azureabyss538 Před 4 lety +1

      @@silkwesir1444 I didn't mention that the name originated there, did I?

  • @geofftaylor8913
    @geofftaylor8913 Před 4 lety +5

    What a great way to explain it. If that had been presented to me in primary school I would have been light years ahead.

  • @adrianthegreat8190
    @adrianthegreat8190 Před 4 lety +3

    “Oh yeah it’s useful, but I would have done it anyway” is the best quote to describe a mathematician

  • @budzikt
    @budzikt Před 4 lety +2

    Guys, your channel is gold. I'm repeating myself over and over again.

  • @hichaeretaqua
    @hichaeretaqua Před 4 lety +5

    1 year of geometry class in 10 minutes. Awesome

  • @technoultimategaming2999
    @technoultimategaming2999 Před 4 lety +79

    3:35
    Complex/Imaginery numbers
    *am I a joke to you?*

    • @hamiltonianpathondodecahed5236
      @hamiltonianpathondodecahed5236 Před 4 lety +3

      More like
      "Understand my reality"

    • @AlisterCountel
      @AlisterCountel Před 4 lety +2

      I still debate if the name “lateral units” would have been any better. Read somewhere that was a debated name. That said, I can’t think of another possible name for complex analysis, or anything dealing with a name for the algebraic completion of the reals!

    • @samuelthecamel
      @samuelthecamel Před 4 lety +4

      I mean, they aren't wrong, complex numbers are pretty complex.

    • @angelmendez-rivera351
      @angelmendez-rivera351 Před 4 lety +1

      AlisterCountel The name lateral unit would apply to the imaginary unit, not the set of complex numbers in its entirety.

  • @ThatsGobbles
    @ThatsGobbles Před 4 lety +1

    It’s amazing the amount of work and love that goes into these videos, these animations are beautiful!

  • @enderwiggins8248
    @enderwiggins8248 Před 4 lety +4

    I loved hearing Ben on the numberphile podcast, he’s encouraged me to try for a PGCE after undergrad

  • @bobjones5869
    @bobjones5869 Před 4 lety +5

    this guy is an amazing teacher please have more videos with him!!

  • @evanfortunato2382
    @evanfortunato2382 Před 3 lety +5

    My calculus teacher in highschool always said "everything you need to know about the trig functions can be found in their graphs." Guess he was right.

  • @shrutsilakari9711
    @shrutsilakari9711 Před 4 lety +3

    I would love to see a follow up video on Trigonometry. It is one of my favourite fields of Mathematics at school. Maybe some beautiful proofs for the identities among other things would be wonderful. Mr. Ben Sparks is really talented and passionate and I love every Numberphile video which features him!

  • @TemplerOO7
    @TemplerOO7 Před 4 lety +2

    How about a video on hyperbolic functions and their geometry?

  • @ivanjones6957
    @ivanjones6957 Před 4 lety +17

    one of my fave teachers!

  • @nerdomania24
    @nerdomania24 Před 4 lety +15

    strangly, but I have learned that all of these properties of sin/cos at my school in Russia and we had exactly that circle and even more advanced ones to help us in exams

  • @mzadro7
    @mzadro7 Před 3 lety +2

    Why are the Ben Sparks videos the best on this channel?!

  • @scptime1188
    @scptime1188 Před 4 lety

    The different interpretations of the basic version are so beautiful.

  • @JM-sr6mj
    @JM-sr6mj Před 4 lety +6

    Would be really cool to see these animations also with the hyperbolic functions!

    • @Veovisce
      @Veovisce Před 3 lety +1

      I know I'm late to this party, but yeah - that's exactly what I was hoping for after he covered secant, cosecant, etc. I don't think you can use a point moving around on a circle to reference the hyperbolic functions, the way everything was shown in this video though. The shape that the reference point would move along would have to be a hyperbola instead of a circle.

  • @therealcaldini
    @therealcaldini Před 4 lety +3

    That IS beautiful. Simple yet brilliant video.

  • @juliannicholls
    @juliannicholls Před 4 lety

    I knew all of these things, and have seen a lot of the visualisations before, but seeing it all in one place and having it all synthesised together is awesome.

  • @WhatAreDrums729
    @WhatAreDrums729 Před 4 lety

    Having the sound phase with the opening few animations was an excellent touch

  • @erg0centric
    @erg0centric Před 4 lety +10

    "it's got no use" - creates ball bearing from first principles

    • @matthiasscherer9270
      @matthiasscherer9270 Před 3 lety +1

      And other useful things like Wavepropagation, Gear(set)s... Ok, everything has additional details. And I am sure these principle ist used even in way more cases.
      Maybe it's got no use for Mathematicians ;-) :-D :-D

  • @DeclanMBrennan
    @DeclanMBrennan Před 4 lety +29

    10:001"That's the bit that's got no use". How about for converting rotary to linear motion in Mechanics or visa versa ?

    • @hyfy-tr2jy
      @hyfy-tr2jy Před 4 lety +6

      you are spot on...without this mechanic the piston driven internal combustion engine or steam engine would not be possible

    • @NisseVex
      @NisseVex Před 4 lety +3

      I don't think it would have been very fitting for him to say "and this is the bit that's useful for converting rotary to linear motion in Mechanics or visa versa"
      It's just his way of saying that it's the end of the trig lesson, you can't learn much from this any more, it just looks nice

  • @chrisbtoo
    @chrisbtoo Před 12 dny

    This takes me back to my early 90s Atari ST demo scene days. I had a lot of fun with modulating multiple sin/cos waves with different amplitudes to make some quite pretty animations. It's great that the tools exist now to explain this stuff so clearly.

  • @vijaysinghpatel-uy7je
    @vijaysinghpatel-uy7je Před rokem +1

    Beautiful, both the mathematics and Ben's passion teaching it.

  • @omkargheware1450
    @omkargheware1450 Před 4 lety +61

    If Ptolemy made trigonometry it would be like this.

  • @naswinger
    @naswinger Před 4 lety +3

    i think this is the most educational video i've ever seen. i never learned trigonometry in high school (not sure if it was skipped or not even in the syllabus) and i still don't know how i passed my calculus exams for computer science.

  • @Till374
    @Till374 Před 4 lety +2

    9:54 I love how Brady's Aussie-ness is coming through when he gets excited

  • @MysterX79
    @MysterX79 Před 4 lety +2

    Every bit in this episode I knew already, but it was a wonderfull version to visualize it to my kids, when talking about it. Thanks for that.

  • @nickcarter4006
    @nickcarter4006 Před 4 lety +5

    Keanu voice: "I know Trigonometry"

  • @WillToWinvlog
    @WillToWinvlog Před 4 lety +3

    The instant I saw that first animation I knew it was sin and cos!

  • @Raptiel
    @Raptiel Před 4 lety +2

    I seriously love your guys for making these videos. I literally watched all videos on this channel multiple times. My favourite ones are those about really large numbers, Surreal numbers and my most favourite topic of all INFINITY ❤❤❤. I cant thank you guys enough ❤

  • @jeremyredd4232
    @jeremyredd4232 Před 4 lety +1

    Definitely recommending this video for my calculus based physics students. This is perfect for a review of vectors, this lends itself well to simple harmonic motion, great for polar coordinates, and eventually complex numbers. So dope!

  • @dontsubscribe1954
    @dontsubscribe1954 Před 4 lety +23

    You: gets 3.14 subs
    Me: Oh yeah, it's all coming together

  • @fractalnomics
    @fractalnomics Před 4 lety +10

    This is very relevant to my current research into the (iterating) fractal, thank you.

  • @elizadawley6351
    @elizadawley6351 Před rokem

    Another comment to say the same thing as the rest: this video was so incredibly helpful and inspiring. Visualizing sin and cosine waves on 3 planes cleared up the entire concept of trigonometry very nicely. I wish this type of video could be shown more often in public schools. The in-depth (and fun) explanations that come from this channel could do so much to keep students interested and confident in mathematics. Thank you for the content, I will definitely be watching this video again.

  • @peterclancy3653
    @peterclancy3653 Před 4 lety

    I saw a connecting rod on a piston driving a flywheel moving with the motion of one of these dots. A very elegant piece of engineering and now I know how the motion is constructed. Thank you. I wish my teaches at school had described the trig functions as you have.

  • @AeroCraftAviation
    @AeroCraftAviation Před 4 lety +3

    0:19 Cool overtone background. Almost sounds like someone singing through the harmonic series or something. Nice maths too tho hehe. :)

  • @asusa555lfgaming9
    @asusa555lfgaming9 Před 4 lety +16

    "mitochondria is powerhouse of the cell."

  • @gabriellord9214
    @gabriellord9214 Před 4 lety +1

    This makes so much more sense now!! Intuitive clarity, if that's a thing!! Excellent!

  • @TheMuffinMan
    @TheMuffinMan Před 3 lety

    I love this. It explains the underlying concept rather than just "How it works". I feel like understanding why something is the way it is will better help accept it and understand it.

  • @sunnyyt8778
    @sunnyyt8778 Před 4 lety +3

    Coincidentally my coaching also started trigonometry woooooooooooo!

  • @anshusingh1493
    @anshusingh1493 Před 4 lety +4

    *I want the making of this animation*

  • @WojtekCzaderna
    @WojtekCzaderna Před 4 lety

    I believe that this was the most useful videos I've seen.
    I literally got the shivers.
    I mean each Numberophile video is great but this one so nicely explains the things that we learn in school not even touching the point of the origin of SIN COS functions.
    Math is so beautiful if learned in this way!

  • @danielstephenson7558
    @danielstephenson7558 Před 4 lety +1

    Ben is one of my favorite Numberphilers.
    He's managed to explain 3 things I could not get my head around until now: the Mandelbrot set, the basics of trigonometry and The Golden Ratio to me using visual demonstration. I loves it.
    I had a good maths teacher at school, don't get me wrong, (Thanks Mr. Noble) but I'm still quite jealous of the tools kids have now to better understand these concepts.

  • @robertkraus357
    @robertkraus357 Před 4 lety +4

    In school, we actually learned the definition of the trig functions in precisely this way and later applied them to triangles. Therefore I never quite understood how these functions are confusing to some. they are just beautiful. Furthermore, this approach is fantastic for learning about complex numbers and the R*(sin(phi) + i*cos(phi)) representation of complex numbers

    • @angelmendez-rivera351
      @angelmendez-rivera351 Před 4 lety

      Most schools do not put in the time or effort to teach them like this. It is truly unfortunate. Mathematical education in this world is at crisis.

  • @DhirajKyawal
    @DhirajKyawal Před 2 lety +4

    Where were you 10 years ago?! 😭😭😭

  • @GenericInternetter
    @GenericInternetter Před 4 lety +1

    All these years and finally i understand the circular functions! Thank you!

  • @JMDinOKC
    @JMDinOKC Před 3 lety

    Love that sound effect where the equalization peak is going up and down the frequency range.

  • @faucetrememberly2399
    @faucetrememberly2399 Před 4 lety +6

    Is it just me, or does this chap look like William Riker from Star Trek?

  • @gauravjoshi6725
    @gauravjoshi6725 Před 4 lety +5

    The video does justice to the title absolutely beautiful man❤️

  • @pkern161
    @pkern161 Před 3 lety +1

    I am taking finals this week at University and taking trigonometry. I have always been ok with math but this in depth trigonometry was tough. This video would have helped me so much this semester. It was so nice to see it visually. Wish I found you 12 weeks ago. Liked and subscribed now.

  • @joshbennettmusic
    @joshbennettmusic Před 4 lety

    This is almost precisely the animation I had planned to create for my next music tutorial video (talking about harmonics and resonance). I need to get onto Geogebra by the looks! Thanks Ben and Brady (yet again) for a wonderful video.

  • @vlogerhood
    @vlogerhood Před 4 lety +10

    The failure to actually mention the terms secant, cosecant, and cotangent while saying "sec", "cos", and "cot" is at best an odd choice. But notably makes life harder for those who might want to research them further.

    • @sparkytheteacher
      @sparkytheteacher Před 4 lety +1

      Fair.

    • @angelmendez-rivera351
      @angelmendez-rivera351 Před 4 lety +1

      Not really, since the viewers most likely know what those abbreviations refer to already. This video is being made with the assumption that you already know what these functions are on a very basic level.

    • @silkwesir1444
      @silkwesir1444 Před 4 lety +1

      @@angelmendez-rivera351 not really... it is made with the assumption that you already have _used_ these functions, but without knowing on a very basic level what they are. The video in turn provides such understanding.

    • @angelmendez-rivera351
      @angelmendez-rivera351 Před 4 lety +4

      Silkwesir If you have used them, then you know what they are. It does not mean you have a deeper, insightful understanding of why they are what they are, but it still does mean you know what they are. Knowing what they are and understanding what they are constitute different things. Don't confuse the two, please.

    • @randomguy263
      @randomguy263 Před 4 lety +1

      You could just search for "sec trigonometry" and so on, instead.

  • @LeventK
    @LeventK Před 4 lety +3

    This should be learnt in trigonometry firstly surely!

  • @heisenberg1601
    @heisenberg1601 Před 4 lety +1

    1:40 We actually use this circle (we call it "rotating vector") to find the phase of the oscilation and solve problems on simple harmonic motion in my physics class(12th grade physics)

  • @402077662
    @402077662 Před 4 lety +1

    Excellent visual representations and explanations!!

  • @mikesimpson3207
    @mikesimpson3207 Před 4 lety +12

    Wait, do people outside of the US actually call the tangent the "tan" and the secent the "sec?" When I was in school if we pronounced the abbreviations of tan, cos, etc we got yelled at.

    • @ideallyyours
      @ideallyyours Před 4 lety +8

      I'm from Singapore, and during my math classes the teacher introduced it to us as "tangent, sine, and cosine functions", but from then on it was interchangeably used with "tan, sine, cos" since from context everyone knew what was being referred to.

    • @Zveebo
      @Zveebo Před 4 lety +1

      It was always “tan of x” or whatever. Helped differentiate the tangent function from tangents.

    • @bharathir330
      @bharathir330 Před 4 lety

      Nope. Only for cos ,tan, cot ,we pronounce the abbreviations

    • @thehiddenninja3428
      @thehiddenninja3428 Před 4 lety

      I was taught that it's fine to say all of the abbreviations:
      sin, cos, tan, sec, cosec, cot, shine, cosh, than, sesh, cosesh, coth

    • @bobmccarty2022
      @bobmccarty2022 Před 3 lety

      @@thehiddenninja3428 My calc professor usually said the full words for the trig functions of a circle, but he prudently decided it was too many syllables to say "hyperbolic sin", "hyperbolic cosine", etc. He always used abbreviations for those, pronounced (roughly) (IPA) /sintʃ/, /coʊʃ/, /tæntʃ/, /sitʃ/, /ˈkoʊˌsitʃ/, and /koʊθ/.

  • @aashmanhonor7946
    @aashmanhonor7946 Před 4 lety +4

    Imagine this stopped at 301 views

  • @sahilislam6895
    @sahilislam6895 Před 4 lety

    I haven' t seen such beautiful representation of these before. My life would have been incomplete without this. Thank you 😊

  • @ldonnell4437
    @ldonnell4437 Před 3 lety

    I have tried to learn trig so many times and I can never seem to wrap my mind around the trig functions. But this video really cleared it up for me. Thanks you so much!