tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7707739904261330151.post3019095557005550230..comments2023-10-29T00:53:06.402-07:00Comments on Truth Inexorable: trigonometry has a badly designed interfaceNatehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11967547718472192519noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7707739904261330151.post-81106888252946596532009-02-07T14:44:00.000-08:002009-02-07T14:44:00.000-08:00Alright, I'm retroactively applying the 'satire' t...Alright, I'm retroactively applying the 'satire' tag to this post. It's totally a satire on how computer programmers get twisted into knots trying to name things well. ;-)<BR/><BR/>I'm not advocating renaming the trigonometric functions. Just sayin', is all.Natehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11967547718472192519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7707739904261330151.post-76361000094129113982009-02-07T14:17:00.000-08:002009-02-07T14:17:00.000-08:00I agree with sam. At least they are unique identif...I agree with sam. At least they are unique identifiers and not overloading some single-letter greek or latin letter. And at least every math, science, and engineering discipline uses the same convention. As a piece of satire, the article works, and your logic is sound but ... Leaving succinct notation alone... for the win!Jaredhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00042950147476752956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7707739904261330151.post-67722823598566168282009-02-06T07:20:00.000-08:002009-02-06T07:20:00.000-08:00Honestly the base functions of sine and cosine get...Honestly the base functions of sine and cosine get used so much in so many different contexts, they would almost certainly get a name. <BR/><BR/>These days, it seems it would most likely end up with the usual "arbitrary greek letter" a la gamma function and phi function, or named after some mathematician a la Euler's function, Bessel functions, or Legendre functions. Don't overlook the possibility it would be <I>both</I>, like the Dirac delta, Kronecker delta, or Riemann zeta.<BR/><BR/>When you think that it could be, say, "the Perelman tau function", "sine" and "cosine" are pretty good.Samhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01353307602111785602noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7707739904261330151.post-85271323143216235012009-02-05T15:12:00.000-08:002009-02-05T15:12:00.000-08:00Yes. At some point concepts warrant their own word...Yes. At some point concepts warrant their own words. The trigonometric functions probably do indeed qualify. But if we were writing trigonometry from scratch, today, we would totally use long stupid descriptive names. ;-)Natehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11967547718472192519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7707739904261330151.post-46017529375291685212009-02-05T11:25:00.000-08:002009-02-05T11:25:00.000-08:00Isn't that what new words are for? You have some c...Isn't that what new words are for? You have some complicated concept ("the ratio of the length of the opposite side to the length of the hypotenuse") that you want to be able to refer to more easily, and so you invent a single word ("sine") to refer to it.<BR/><BR/>Mightn't you complain just as legitimately that, say, "up" is an arbitrary and meaningless foreign name for "the direction that is pointed against the pull of gravity"?Samhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01353307602111785602noreply@blogger.com