Angle
ANGLE (from the Lat. angulus, a corner, a diminutive, of which the primitive form, angus, does not occur in Latin; cognate are the Lat. angere, to compress into a bend or to strangle, and the Gr. agkos, a bend; both connected with the Aryan root ank-, to bend: see ANGLING), in geometry, the inclination of one line or plane to another. Euclid (Elements, book I) defines a plane angle as the inclination to each other, in a plane, of two lines which meet each other, and do not lie straight with respect to each other (see GEOMETRY, EUCLIDEAN). According to Proclus an angle must be either a quality or a quantity, or a relationship. The first concept was utilized by Eudemus, who regarded an angle as a deviation from a straight line; the second by Carpus of Antioch, who regarded it as the interval or space between the intersecting lines; Euclid adopted the third concept, although his definitions of right, acute, and obtuse angles are certainly quantitative. A discussion of these concepts and the various definitions of angles in Euclidean geometry is to be found in W. B. Frankland, The First Book of Euclid's Elements (1905). Following Euclid, a right angle is formed by a straight line standing upon another straight line so as to make the adjacent angles equal; any angle less than a right angle is termed an acute angle, and any angle greater than a right angle an obtuse angle. The difference between an acute angle and a right angle is termed the complement of the angle, and between an angle and two right angles the supplement of the angle. The generalized view of angles and their measurement is treated in the article TRIGONOMETRY. A solid angle is definable as the space contained by three or more planes intersecting in a common point; it is familiarly represented by a corner. The angle between two planes is termed dihedral, between three trihedral, between any number more than three polyhedral. A spherical angle is a particular dihedral angle; it is the angle between two intersecting arcs on a Sphere, and is measured by the angle between the planes containing the arcs and the centre of the Sphere.
The angle between a line and a curve (mixed angle) or between two curves (curvilinear angle) is measured by the angle between the line and the tangent at the point of intersection, or between the tangents to both curves at their common point. Various names (now rarely, if ever, used) have been given to particular cases: - amphicyrtic or cissoidal , biconvex; xystroidal or sistroidal , concavo-convex; amphicoelic or angulus lunularis, biconcave.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
