title: Java BigDecimal trigonometric methods
body: <p>I am developing a mathematical parser which is able to evaluate String like <code>'5+b*sqrt(c^2)'</code>. I am using ANTLR for the parsing and make good progress. Now I fell over the Java class <code>BigDecimal</code> and thought: hey, why not thinking about precision here.</p>
  
  <p>My problem is that the Java API does not provide trigonometric methods for <code>BigDecimal</code>s like <code>java.lang.Math</code>. Do you know if there are any good math libraries like Apache Commons out there that deal with this problem?</p>
  
  <p>The other questions is how to realize the power method so that I can calculate 4.9 ^ 1.4 with <code>BigDecimal</code>s. Is this possible?</p>
  
  <p>A book request about numerical computing is also appreciated.</p>