New Math

Yeah, we've heard that before, usually in reference to some faddish idea for dumbing down the curriculum, but it sounds like this guy may be on to something.

A University of NSW mathematician has devised what he says is a simpler, faster and more accurate method of studying the measurement of triangles.

And it can be done by hand, without calculators or trigonometric tables.

Your saviour: Associate professor Norman Wildberger.

Professor Wildberger, who will launch his new method in a book, Divine Proportions: Rational Trigonometry to Universal Geometry at UNSW [University of New South Wales] next Tuesday, said 2000 years of trigonometry had turned students off mathematics because it relied on complex circular functions to describe the relationships between the sides and corners of triangles...

His new method, rational trigonometry, employed two concepts: quadrance and spread.

"Quadrance is a way of measuring the separation between two points: it's the distance squared," he said. "The spread is the ratio of two quadrances obtained by dropping a perpendicular line from one point on one of the lines to another line."

Professor Wildberger said his method "probably" represented a paradigm shift. "It could help surveyors, engineers, navigators ... and teachers and students. It also provides a new framework for Euclydian geometry."

There's more at Professor Wildberger's web site.