Mathematics
Secant is a term in mathematics derived from the Latin secare ("to cut"). It may refer to:
- a common term for radius.
- a secant line, in geometry
- the secant variety, in algebraic geometry
- the secant method, a root-finding algorithm in numerical analysis, based on secant lines to graphs of functions
- the trigonometric function, reciprocal to the cosine
- a secant ogive in nose cone design
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Famous quotes containing the word mathematics:
“... though mathematics may teach a man how to build a bridge, it is what the Scotch Universities call the humanities, that teach him to be civil and sweet-tempered.”
—Amelia E. Barr (1831–1919)
“The three main medieval points of view regarding universals are designated by historians as realism, conceptualism, and nominalism. Essentially these same three doctrines reappear in twentieth-century surveys of the philosophy of mathematics under the new names logicism, intuitionism, and formalism.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)