Mitsuru Nielsen Term Project Math 1080

Many students believe that math courses are not applicable to everyday life. After taking this class I am a believer that math can be applied in the every day world. For example, Harmonic motion is used all the time in life we just need to know where to look. Some examples of Harmonic motion include, a person at the end of a diving board, a child on a swing, a slinky, or waves in the ocean. It is important to understand amplitude, period, and frequency in these situations to know how high, how fast, how often the motion will occur. Of course some of us will go through our lives without actually breaking down every day occurrences into mathematic problems. But math is all around us. From finding how fast a car is moving to how hard we need to shoot a basketball and at what angle to make the shot. This project is a great representation of several topics covered in our Precalculus course. From identifying alterations to sin and cosine graphs, to solving triangles, to using trig identities of triangles, these problems give you a good sample of the curriculum covered in the course.

Part I Modeling the Motion of a Spring

Consider a weight attached to a spring that is suspended from a horizontal bar as illustrated in the figure. When the object comes to rest we say it is at equilibrium which is labeled 0 on the vertical number line. If you give the weight a push, either up or down, it will start to move and the motion can be modeled by sine and cosine functions. The stiffness of the spring and the mass of the object affect how far the object moves from the equilibrium position. The initial velocity and initial position also affect the motion of the spring. (We dont always start at the equilibrium position.) If we neglect any damping forces (air resistance etc.) then the motion of the spring can be modeled by

Where x(t) is the position of the object along the number line at time t. The other quantities are constants: is a constant that depends on the stiffness of the spring and the mass of the weight, is the initial velocity, and is the initial position of the object. Model the motion of a weight on a spring: Suppose a weight is set in motion from a position 7 centimeters below the equilibrium position and with a downward velocity of 16 centimeters per second. (Please note that the vertical number line used for position is upside down. This is a convention from physics and it means that position below equilibrium actually correspond to a positive value.) Assume that the constant for the spring stiffness and mass of the weight is = 6 for this system.In First, the function that gives the position of the weight as a function of time in seconds is: (16/6)sin(6t)+7cos(6t) The graph of the functions and is:

When graphing these functions a few alterations are made from the original sin and cos functions. First, there is no phase shift for either graph. Second, both sin and cos period shortened. Third, Amplitude increased for both sin and cos. Finally, there was a frequency increase for both sin and cos. Sin 2.6 Pi/3 N/A 3/pi Cosine 7 Pi/3 N/A 3/pi

Amplitude Period Shift Frequency

Using a graphing utility we change the window settings to tmin=pi/3; tmax: 2pi/3; xmin=-10; xmax=10. The horizontal axis is t, and the vertical axis is x for this graph.

The equation for you calculator is in the form x(t)=Acos[B(t-C)] Therefore our equation is 7.49cos[pi/3(x-.061)] We find this equation we look at the maximum and minimums of the graph to find the amplitude A (7.491). We find a phase shift C by finding how far from the original sin/cos graphs our new graph has shifted, which is to the right .061 (x-.061). We find our Period B by finding how long it takes for the function to complete one cycle. Sin/Cos normal period is 2pi. To find out period we take 2pi/6=pi/3, so our B is pi/3. Our second graph is the combination of both the Sin and Cos graphs from our original function. From our second graph we determine that the amplitude increases, there is a phase shift, while the frequency/period remain constant.

Amplitude

Graph 1 Sin- 2.67 Cos- 7

Graph 2 7.491

Period Frequency Phase shift

Pi/3 3/pi 0

Pi/3 3/pi To the right .061

Part II Consider the following triangle:

It is always possible to draw a right triangle with the legs having two measurements when C1 and C2 are perpendicular to each other. We calculate side A using the Pythagorean Theorem.

Sin=C1/A Cos=C2/A Tan=C1/C2

C1=Asin C2=Acos

To find we take tan=C1/C2 Inveresetan(tan)=inversetan(C1/C2)

To find A and given that C1=4 and C2=2 To find A we use the Pythagorean Theorem A^2=4^2+2^2 A=sqrt(20) A=4.47 To find we use tan=(2/4) Inversetan(tan)=inversetan(2/4) =.463 radians or 26.6 degrees

To find A and given that C1=8/3 and C2=7 To find A we use Pythagorean Theorem A^2=(8/3)^2+(7)^2

A=7.49 To find we use tan=(8/3)/7 Inversetan(tan)=inversetan(8/3)/7 =.36 radians or 20.85 degrees

Part III We will verify the identity is true

Step Asin sin(wt) +Acos cos(wt)=Acos(wt- ) A(sin()sin(wt) + cos()cos(wt)

Justification Original Equation Distributive property- Pull out A

A(cos()cos(wt)+sin()sin(wt) A(cos(wt- )) A(cos(wt- ))

Commutative Property Formulas for Cosine- Difference Formula A(cos(wt- ))

The identity is verified by the left had side of the equation matching the right side of the equation.

Part IV Using the function from Part I of the project

We will rewrite Asin()sin(wt)+Acos()cos(wt) in the form Acos(wt- ) We change

Asin()sin(wt)+Acos()cos(wt) into Acos(wt- ) using the Formulas for Cosine- Difference formula. We then rewrite Acos(wt-( )) into the form Acos(B(t-C). Assuming A is constant, w=B, and =(b)(c). AcosB(t-c) =Acos(Bt-Bc) Substitute w for B and for Bc A=cos(wt- )