Divine Proportions: Rational Trigonometry to Universal Geometry is a 2005 book by the mathematician Norman J. Wildberger on a proposed alternative approach to Euclidean geometry and trigonometry, called rational trigonometry. The book advocates replacing the usual basic quantities of trigonometry, Euclidean distance and angle measure, by squared distance and the square of the sine of the angle, respectively. This is logically equivalent to the standard development (as the replacement quantities can be expressed in terms of the standard ones and vice versa). The author claims his approach holds some advantages, such as avoiding the need for irrational numbers. The book was "essentially self-published" by Wildberger through his publishing company Wild Egg. The formulas and theorems in the book are regarded as correct mathematics but the claims about practical or pedagogical superiority are primarily promoted by Wildberger himself and have received mixed reviews.
Overview The main idea of Divine Proportions is to replace distances by the squared Euclidean distance, which Wildberger calls the quadrance, and to replace angle measures by the squares of their sines, which Wildberger calls the spread between two lines. Divine Proportions defines both of these concepts directly from the Cartesian coordinates of points that determine a line segment or a pair of crossing lines. Defined in this way, they are rational functions of those coordinates, and can be calculated directly without the need to take the square roots or inverse trigonometric functions required when computing distances or angle measures. For Wildberger, a finitist, this replacement has the purported advantage of avoiding the concepts of limits and actual infinity used in defining the real numbers, which Wildberger claims to be unfounded. It also allows analogous concepts to be extended directly from the rational numbers to other number systems such as finite fields using the same formulas for quadrance and spread. Additionally, this method avoids the ambiguity of the two supplementary angles formed by a pair of lines, as both angles have the same spread. This system is claimed to be more intuitive, and to extend more easily from two to three dimensions. However, in exchange for these benefits, one loses the additivity of distances and angles: for instance, if a line segment is divided in two, its length is the sum of the lengths of the two pieces, but combining the quadrances of the pieces is more complicated and requires square roots.
Organization and topics Divine Proportions is divided into four parts. Part I presents an overview of the use of quadrance and spread to replace distance and angle, and makes the argument for their advantages. Part II formalizes the claims made in part I, and proves them rigorously. Rather than defining lines as infinite sets of points, they are defined by their homogeneous coordinates, which may be used in formulas for testing the incidence of points and lines. Like the sine, the cosine and tangent are replaced with rational equivalents, called the "cross" and "twist", and Divine Proportions develops various analogues of trigonometric identities involving these quantities, including versions of the Pythagorean theorem, law of sines and law of cosines. Part III develops the geometry of triangles and conic sections using the tools developed in the two previous parts. Well known results such as Heron's formula for calculating the area of a triangle from its side lengths, or the inscribed angle theorem in the form that the angles subtended by a chord of a circle from other points on the circle are equal, are reformulated in terms of quadrance and spread, and thereby generalized to arbitrary fields of numbers. Finally, Part IV considers practical applications in physics and surveying, and develops extensions to higher-dimensional Euclidean space and to polar coordinates.
Audience Divine Proportions does not assume much in the way of mathematical background in its readers, but its many long formulas, frequent consideration of finite fields, and (after part I) emphasis on mathematical rigour are likely to be obstacles to a popular mathematics audience. Instead, it is mainly written for mathematics teachers and researchers. However, it may also be readable by mathematics students, and contains exercises making it possible to use as the basis for a mathematics course.
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