Michael Robinson at ‘Time to eat the dogs‘ has a stimulating post on how the, today as myth dismissed, story of a Christian King in the East, Prester John served as a driving force in the wave of European exploration that started in the 15th century. It is a far from trivial fact that this push to explore the world outside of Europe was also a significant factor in the development of the mathematical sciences in the Renaissance.
The surge of exploration started by the Portuguese followed by the Spanish and set forth by the Dutch and finally the English demanded new developments in navigation and cartography, both of which in their turn were major driving forces in the rebirth of mathematical astronomy in the 15th and 16th centuries; all three disciplines required in their growth the use and development of trigonometry. This development was so extensive that Ivor Grattan-Guinness calls the period “The Age of Trigonometry” in his general history of mathematics The Rainbow of Mathematics. The developments in trigonometry led to the invention of logarithms at the end of the 16th century as a tool for astronomers, navigators and cartographers. During the 17th century trigonometrical and logarithmic functions grew out of the two disciplines and became a central element of analysis in the 18th century.
Sometimes the historical heuristics of scientific disciplines are not quite as rational as some would have us believe. Following the twists and turns of those paths of development is the core of my historical endeavours. The main point of the sketch above is that the modern sciences were not, as is often claimed, the product of some sort of anstract intellectual philosophical activity but evolved out of social necessities. The Copernican heliocentricity was an accidental by product of a general movement to produce an improved and more accurate astronomy to serve the needs of the navigators and cartographers, amongst others, who in turn were supplying the needs of the explorers and traders.