Yeah, if positive was clockwise in trig, y = sin x would have a negative slope at x = 0, which I guess Albert Sine found distasteful.
(I made up Albert Sine. I don’t know that there’s anyone specific we can attribute the invention of trigonometric functions to. But I like to imagine him sitting at a desk scribbling right triangles by candle light and scratching his head as to how he’d go about actually calculating the sine, cosine, tangent, arcsine, arccosine, etc of various arbitrary values within his lifetime.)
Back when I took trigonometry, they taught me positive was counterclockwise.
Another American thing maybe? Always been clockwise for me
Edit: ah duck me, trig goes the other way round, forgot, everything else is clockwise tho
Yeah, if positive was clockwise in trig,
y = sin xwould have a negative slope atx = 0, which I guess Albert Sine found distasteful.(I made up Albert Sine. I don’t know that there’s anyone specific we can attribute the invention of trigonometric functions to. But I like to imagine him sitting at a desk scribbling right triangles by candle light and scratching his head as to how he’d go about actually calculating the sine, cosine, tangent, arcsine, arccosine, etc of various arbitrary values within his lifetime.)
I will blame trigonometry, because orienteering says it’s the other way around.