The sine of the beast

18th December, 2008

Two things (one interesting, one very silly) that I have recently learnt about the sine function:

1. The sine rule, as most school-students know, says that in any triangle, \frac{A}{sin a} is constant, whichever side A and opposite angle a you pick.

Less well-known is that this quantity actually has a geometric meaning: it gives the diameter of the triangle’s circumscribing circle. The Math Less Travelled has pictures.

2.

sin (\frac{37 \pi}{10})=-\frac{1 + \sqrt{5}}{4}

This may seem an innocuous enough fact. But prepare to be amazed! If you convert \frac{37 \pi}{10} into degrees, you get 666o, which is of course the the Number of the Beast. And you might spot the ubiquitous Golden Ratio \phi=\frac{1+ \sqrt{5}}{2} lurking on the other side of the equation. So now our formula becomes:

sin(666^{o})=-\frac{\phi}{2}

The standard numerological-satanic interpretation of this fact, I am reliably informed, is that the Devil is the opposite of God (hence the minus sign), and only half as powerful. Where exactly the trigonometry fits in, I’m not sure…

   

Categories: Crankishness, Maths | Permalink

One Response to “The sine of the beast”

  1. From M. Hampton:

    September 12th, 2010 at 4:50 pm

    I am suddenly getting really annoying warning notices from texify.com instead of your nice equations. Hopefully there’s an easy way for you to fix it.