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Re:Obsolete trig functions and why we don't use them anymore... by jacobolus on Thursday December 03, 2020 @01:14PM (#25292322)
> Were they trying to prepare you for a world without paper or computers

Yes, most high schools spend a few months teaching “trigonometry” as a system for simplifying formulas that was primarily useful historically to save time for human calculators working with pen/paper and a printed lookup table. In the modern world this is entirely anachronistic and the content could be profitably compressed down to a couple weeks, with the saved time spent on something else. The main remaining utility is as rather cumbersome, unpleasant, and unenlightening algebra practice.

Re:Obsolete trig functions and why we don't use them anymore... by gmadsen on Friday December 04, 2020 @10:20AM (#25303194)
I think it would be enlightening but rarely done in school, is focus on the geometry of it and how the relationships are connected, such as https://math.wikia.org/wiki/Unit_circle?file=Unit_circle_ind...