Tag Archives: trigonometry

Bhāskara-II’s polygons and an algebraic approximation for sines of pi by x

Unlike the Greeks, the Hindus were not particularly obsessed with constructions involving just a compass and a straightedge. Nevertheless, their pre-modern architecture and yantra-s from the tāntrika tradition indicate that they routinely constructed various regular polygons inscribed in circles. Of … Continue reading

Posted in Heathen thought, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Johannes Germanus Regiomontanus and his rod

Even before we had become acquainted with the trigonometric sum and difference formulae or calculus are father had pointed to us that there was an optimal point at which one should stand to observe or photograph features on vertical structures, … Continue reading

Posted in Heathen thought, History, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A guilloche-like trigonometric tangle

Coprimality, i.e., the situation where the GCD of 2 integers is 1 is one of the fundamental expressions of complexity. In that situation, two numbers can never contain the other within themselves or in multiples of them by numbers smaller … Continue reading

Posted in art, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Mātrā-meru and convergence to a triangle

What is presented below will be elementary for someone with even just the mastery of secondary school mathematics. Nevertheless, even simple stuff might present points of interest to people who see beauty in such things. Consider the following question: Given … Continue reading

Posted in Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sequences related to maps based on simple fractional functions

One of the pleasures of an unstructured youth in the pre-computer era was what we called calculator games. As our father took his prized calculator with him to work we only got a little time with it in the evenings. … Continue reading

Posted in Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Some Nārāyaṇa-like convergents and their geometric and trigonometric connections

While playing with an iterative geometric construction in our youth we discovered for ourselves a particular right triangle whose sides are in the proportion , where is the Golden Ratio. This triangle is of course famous as being the basis … Continue reading

Posted in Heathen thought, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Some notes on rational sector triangle triples

Rational points on a unit circle There are some events that happen in the course of ones life that might be considered historical or world-changing. One such event from our lifetime is the proving of the Last Theorem of Fermat … Continue reading

Posted in Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The minimal triangle circumscribing a semicircle

Consider a fixed semicircle with center at and radius . Let be the isosceles triangle which circumscribes it (Figure 1). Figure 1 What will be the characteristics of the minimal form of the said triangle, i.e. triangle with minimum perimeter, … Continue reading

Posted in art, Heathen thought, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Platonic culmination of Euclid and the pentagon-hexagon-decagon identity

Why did great sage Pāṇini compose the Aṣṭādhyāyī? There were probably multiple reasons but often you hear people say that he wanted to give a complete description of the Sanskrit language. That was probably one of his reasons but was … Continue reading

Posted in Heathen thought, Life | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A novel discrete map exhibiting chaotic behavior

The map proposed by R. Lozi over 40 years ago is one of the simplest two dimensional maps that exhibits chaotic behavior and generates a wide range of interesting structures. The map may be defined thus: where are real parameters. … Continue reading

Posted in Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The remarkable behavior of a map displaying derived from a simple model for a biological conflict

One of the simplest yet profound mathematical models for biological growth emerged sometime in the middle of the 1800s due to the work of Verhulst. It describes population growth thus: let be the population of the organism at time . … Continue reading

Posted in Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sine rugs

Consider a square lattice with uniform vertical and horizontal spacing of a quantum . This can be represented as an array of complex numbers of the form: . For our purposes we chose . Thus the lattice comprises of all … Continue reading

Posted in art, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Trigonometric tangles-3: the fractals

See also: https://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/2016/05/06/the-astroid-the-deltoid-and-the-fish-within-the-fish/ This exploration began in days of youth shortly after we learned about complex numbers. It culminated only much later in adulthood when we discovered for ourselves a class of fractal curves related to a celebrated curve discovered … Continue reading

Posted in art, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Euler’s squares

On account of our fascination with the geometry of origami (albeit not well-endowed in mathematical capacity) we discovered for ourselves shortly after our father had taught us trigonometry that, We had earlier shown the origami proof for that. But it … Continue reading

Posted in Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Trigonometric tangles-2

We had earlier described our exploration of the spirograph, hypocycloids, epicycloids and related curves. In course of our study of the śaiva tantra-s of the kaula tradition we started thinking about a remarkable piece of imagery mentioned in them. Tantra-s … Continue reading

Posted in art, Heathen thought, Life, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Trigonometric tangles

Let us define a define the trigonometric tangle as the following parametric function: where can be a rational number or an irrational number. and are any real number. If is a rational number and then we get a tangle petals … Continue reading

Posted in art, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Āryabhaṭa and his sine table

Everyone and his son have written about Āryabhaṭa and his sine table. Yet we too do this because sometimes the situation arises where you have to explain things clearly to a layman who might have some education but is unfamiliar … Continue reading

Posted in Heathen thought, History, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Some meanderings among golden stuff-2

Related stuff: Golden Ratio-0 Golden Ratio-1 If the golden ratio can fascinate erudite men of high IQ then what to say of simpletons like us. Hence, we shall here talk about some more trivia in this regard. The golden ratio … Continue reading

Posted in art, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Leaves from the scrapbook

There were extensive memoirs in the form of electronic scrapbooks of Somakhya, Lootika and some members of their circle. Those in the know read the available excerpts due to matters of considerable interest being recorded in them. Other parts were … Continue reading

Posted in art, Life | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

van Aubel’s theorem

The van Aubel’s theorem is a simple theorem which is comparable to the theorem attributed to the French conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte regarding triangles. It is easy to prove once you know the upāya, even as the yogin-s would say ānanda … Continue reading

Posted in art, Life, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Partitions, perforations and tilings

We are “geometric” in our thinking – perhaps, we are hence a little more Greek or the old type Arya than the later Hindu (who is more algebraic) in mentality. Long back in college we were fascinated by implicit trigonometric … Continue reading

Posted in art, Life | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Idiosyncratic synesthetic experiences in some trivial trigonometric identities

Mathematical objects, despite existing in a purely abstract “Platonic” realm, have the ability (perhaps by the very virtue of their Platonic idealism) to produce synesthetic experiences. We have often wondered in our life as to why the realization or experience … Continue reading

Posted in art, Heathen thought, Life | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment