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On this page we will spend some time understanding what these functions look like,
and how they behave. In the demonstration below, you will see a trigonometric
function in which several parameters can be varied.
In this function, is a variable. The other quantities are in general fixed, and
each of them influences the shape of the graph of this function. Let us explore how
the shape of the graph of changes as we change its three parameters called the
Amplitude, , the frequency, and the phase shift, . You can drag the nodes to see
what happens as each of these three quantities are varied.
Since our original function, is a periodic function that goes through one complete
cycle when , the function will go through a complete cycle when , i.e. it will
have completed a cycle when . We say that it has a period (which we will denote by
) given by
The height of the peaks and valleys in this function will be given by its
amplitude, .
We are now ready to consider the effect of the phase-shift, . In fact, we can make
note of the fact that the graph of the function will cross the t axis when
Thus, the graph will be shifted so that it crosses the t axis at this value. The
shape of the curve does not change, only its position on the t axis.
Superimposing sines and cosines
Let us take a second look at the function we investigated above, and notice that
when we apply the trigonometric identity
we obtain
Thus, by using a trigonometric identity for the sums of angles, we have reduced a
problem we needed to understand (the question we started with, at the top of this
page) with a problem that we already know how to solve. We have found that the sum
of a sine and a cosine curve is actually equivalent to a sine with a phase shift.
A bit of care is required, however, since in order for this conversion to work, it
must be true that
Example:
Solution:
We observe that the constants in front of the trigonometric functions have the
values
We would like to find the angle and the amplitude that fit with this pattern. The
ratio of the constants
Thus the above superposition of sines and cosines is equivalent to a sine with
amplitude 2, with frequency 5, and which crosses the t axis at .