Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Touch Trigonometry - a visual representation of the trig functions (touchtrigonometry.org)
84 points by redthrowaway on Jan 14, 2011 | hide | past | favorite | 15 comments



This is an example of a great tool to complement an already existing understanding.

As someone who is not trained in Maths I'm confused as to what I'm seeing and where I should look.

Perhaps there needs to be a toggler for the six things you display. I have the feeling that if I played with just 2 or 3 of these I'd probably get it faster.


Just recommended this to my wife, a physics instructor at IU East; some of her local engineering hopefuls are good at tech but definitely fuzzy on math, and this should help a lot. I love it.


Pretty cool!

There's a bug at 315 degrees: cos is listed as -1/sqrt(2), when it should be +1/sqrt(2).


I submitted the bug as feedback. It looks like he hard-coded all of the main identities, so it's likely a pretty easy fix. Nice catch.


Really beautiful.

Everyone's a critic, though -- I can't see secant (purple) because it overlaps the x axis. I wonder if the axis could be in gray?


Love this. There used to be an interactive geometry program for Linux called Dr. Geo - is anyone aware of something similar, preferably on Windows?


There is a nice app called Archimedes Geo 3d: http://raumgeometrie.de/drupal/

It allows you to play with geometrical constructions, intersections etc.


Oh, very nice - this is just the kind of thing I was looking for. Mathematica is more power than I need, and sometimes I just want to explore without pursuing a solution to any particular problem.


Very awesome, I wish I had this when I was taking college math classes.


Nice, is there something similar for hyperbolic trig?


Not sure. I came across this on r/math and figured HN might like it. I just found the visual correspondence between the unit circle and the resulting graph to be great.

I sent Matthew Trost, the creator, a comment asking if he could implement cosh et al. Apparently, he decided to make this after taking Calc II at a community college and realizing his trig was pretty fuzzy. He's also just learning to program. Pretty impressive.

http://www.touchtrigonometry.org/about.html


This is awesome. I wish there was something like this when I was in school. At one point I had planned to start a blog showcasing educational hacks like this. I may have to get that started. This is a wonderful find.


Awesome! We need more tools such as this one to help people get the feel of different concepts in mathematics and physics.


Is this not loading for anyone else?


Between Reddit and HN frontpages, it could have been /.'d.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: