Post the first thing that comes into your mind V2.
- Thread starter Anna
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The modern mathematical terms sine and cosine are derived from a series of mistranslations involving Sanskrit, Arabic, and Latin.
The history of this "incorrect translation" is as follows:
The history of this "incorrect translation" is as follows:
- Original Sanskrit (c. 500 CE): Indian mathematicians, such as Aryabhata, used the term ardha-jya ("half-chord"), which was shortened to jya ("chord" or "bow-string").
- Arabic Translation: When Indian mathematical texts were translated into Arabic, jya was adopted as jiba. Because Arabic script often omits vowels, jiba was written as jb.
- Latin Mistranslation (12th Century): When European scholars translated Arabic texts into Latin, they did not recognize jiba (jb) as a technical math term. Instead, they read it as jayb, an actual Arabic word meaning a "fold," "bay," or "pocket".
- Resulting Term: They translated jayb into the Latin word sinus (which means "bay" or "curve").
- Cosine: Cosine was later derived from an abbreviation of the Latin complementi sinus ("sine of the complementary angle").
.. Yea I remember thinking it was funny when I heard about this. Languages are interesting to look into.
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I find it fun to read random information like this. Other fun hobby is learning about original names of places and how they came to be. Some places have such odd names that one wonders why...
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But what was his cat's name
I looked it up, yeee that's racist.But what was his cat's name