Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Secant is a term in mathematics derived from the Latin secare ("to cut"). It may refer to: a secant line, in geometry; the secant variety, in algebraic geometry; secant (trigonometry) (Latin: secans), the multiplicative inverse (or reciprocal) trigonometric function of the cosine
The word secant comes from the Latin word secare, meaning to cut. [2] In the case of a circle, a secant intersects the circle at exactly two points. A chord is the line segment determined by the two points, that is, the interval on the secant whose ends are the two points. [3]
Their reciprocals are respectively the cosecant, the secant, and the cotangent functions, which are less used. Each of these six trigonometric functions has a corresponding inverse function , and an analog among the hyperbolic functions .
In numerical analysis, the secant method is a root-finding algorithm that uses a succession of roots of secant lines to better approximate a root of a function f. The secant method can be thought of as a finite-difference approximation of Newton's method , so it is considered a quasi-Newton method .
A standard method of evaluating the secant integral presented in various references involves multiplying the numerator and denominator by sec θ + tan θ and then using the substitution u = sec θ + tan θ. This substitution can be obtained from the derivatives of secant and tangent added together, which have secant as a common factor. [6]
A secant variety can be used to show the fact that a smooth projective curve can be embedded into the projective 3-space as follows. [2] Let be a smooth curve. Since the dimension of the secant variety S to C has dimension at most 3, if >, then there is a point p on that is not on S and so we have the projection from p to a hyperplane H, which gives the embedding :.
Specifically, they are the inverses of the sine, cosine, tangent, cotangent, secant, and cosecant functions, [4] and are used to obtain an angle from any of the angle's trigonometric ratios. Inverse trigonometric functions are widely used in engineering , navigation , physics , and geometry .
The word secant comes from Latin for "to cut", and a general secant line "cuts" a circle, intersecting it twice; this concept dates to antiquity and can be found in Book 3 of Euclid's Elements, as used e.g. in the intersecting secants theorem. 18th century sources in Latin called any non-tangential line segment external to a circle with one endpoint on the circumference a secans exterior.