WildTrig1: Why Trig is Hard

this highschool or university?

algebra is the easiest, and you will use it the most in future math classes

trig is easy if you practice with the formulas as a reference.

Fascinating , but I still don't see the advantages of treating geometry like this instead of with sines and cosines and the like. Does it have any applications in physics say harmonic analysis?

Hi meichenl:

I think I am fair to the status quo. Most students would struggle with triangles that were quite different from the 90-45-45 and 90-60-30 examples.

Your example is a cosine. What triangle are you thinking of?

The reality is that Rational Trig is simply a lot better than the current approach. Please keep watching more of the series, and find out why.

Professor Wildberger,

I agree that from what I've seen so far, rational trig is both interesting and easier for students to learn.

As for a specific triangle, we could have a 90 - 67.5 - 22.5 triangle, for example. If the hypotenuse has length 1, the other two sides have lengths 1/2*sqrt(2 + sqrt(2)) and 1/2*sqrt(2 - sqrt(2)).

Yes I agree.

It's not true that there are only two triangles students can work out by hand. I worked out by hand just now that

cos(pi/8) = 1/2*sqrt(2+sqrt(2))

I'm a fan of this new rational trig stuff, but you should at least be fair to the status quo.

My guess is that your ideas will catch on better if you say, "Hey, here's an interesting new way to think about trigonometry," rather than "I figured out the correct, proper, elegant, superior formulation of trig and everyone else in the world is wrong."

i hate trig !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

trigonometry is hard. don't take that. algebra is the easiest.