Tangent - Sine, Cosine, Tangent

As it passes through the point where the tangent line and the curve meet, called the point of tangency, the tangent line is "going in the same direction" as the curve, and is thus the best straight-line approximation to the curve at that point.

Cute animals, political slogans, robots, cupcakes, unicorns....

} As the point q approaches p, which corresponds to making h smaller and smaller, the difference quotient should approach a certain limiting value k, which is the slope of the tangent line at the point p.

In the 1630s developed the technique of to calculate tangents and other problems in analysis and used this to calculate tangents to the parabola.

Tangents, of course, also allude to writing or speaking that diverges from the topic, as when a writer goes off on a tangent and points out that most farmers do not like having their crops stomped down by vandals from this or any other world.

This is a common situation occurring in , a technique to determine unknown distances by measuring two angles and an accessible enclosed distance.