Introduction

Throughout this project I will be demonstrating the use of trigonometric functions to

model the motion of a spring, prove how to solve for any side or angle of a right triangle
and the process of manipulating one side of a trig equation through the use of identities
and other appropriate rules/properties so that it is in the same form as the other side of
the equation. For modeling the motion of the spring I will use
Where
is the position of the object along the number line at time t.
is a constant
the 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. For the purpose of this project I will
be using the values
,
, and
which when we plug these values into
our equation gives us
Below I have graphed each the sine and cosine components of this function on the
same graph,
being the red line, and
being the purple
line.

In the above graph neither function has a horizontal or vertical shift and both have the
same period of . The only differences between these two graphs are their starting
positions being apart from each other and their amplitudes, 8 for the sine function and
2 for the cosine function.
Now lets graph the two functions together as one and see what happens.

Now that we have our combined functions graphed we can decode this graph into a
single function in the form of
. On the above graph I have labeled 3
points A, B and C to help me write this equation. The A corresponds to the amplitude
which can be acquired from the y coordinate of the peaks of the function which is
8.2462, to determine B I have found the distance between the two peaks of the graph
which is
we then divide this value into 2 which gives us
B = 3.0000 and C is our phase shift, the distance from
to the x value of the top of
the first peak .4419. Plugging these values into our new function gives us
If we compare the two graphs with each other we can see some similarities and some
differences. We can see that the amplitude in the second graph is just slightly higher

than the amplitude of the sine function in the first graph because the second graph is
the sum of the two functions in the first graph. The period remains the same throughout
both graphs and we have a slight phase shift to the right on the second graph of .4419.
Right Angle Trigonometry
When working with two positive measurements C1 and C2 you are always able to create
a right triangle with two of the legs having these measurements because you can solve
for the remaining side A by placing the two known angles at a 90 degree angle with
each other and using the Pythagorean Formula to solve for the unknown side.

With a=C1, b=C2, and c=A. You can then easily find formulas to solve for each individual
side and by using basic trig identities.
,
,
,
We can use these formulas now to solve for any values that are given to us, below are a
couple of examples of finding A and in the first scenario we will use C 1=7 and C2=3
First we use the Pythagorean Theorem to solve for A which gives us

Next we use our tangent formula to solve for which is

We can easily repeat the same process with different values as demonstrated below for
C1=8 and C2=2

Verifying Trigonometric Identities

In this part I am going to verify that the identity

is true. Below there are two columns in the left column I will be working
with the left side of the equation and manipulating it until I get it to look like the right side
of the equation. In the right column I will provide a justification for each step in the
process of verifying the identity.
Left Side
Factor Out A
Commutative Property Of Addition
Commutative Property Of Multiplication
Cosine Difference Identity
From the above table we can see that the identity is in fact true and in the next section I
will further elaborate on this by using our established identities from the previous parts.
Rewriting the Same Function In Different Forms
Here we will use our original function from part 1 which is in the form
and rewrite it by using the identities for A, , C1, and C2 that we developed earlier with
,

and

Our first function is

Using the above values we can rewrite this in the form of
Now we can rewrite the above function in the form of
by factoring out our
A which is
and using the commutative properties of addition and multiplication to
rearrange terms which gives us
Then using our cosine difference identity we arrive at
Finally we rewrite our most recent version in the form of
which gives us

So as you can see through the use of identities we can rewrite the same function in
many different forms and use whichever one is most appropriate for the situation at
hand.
Harmonic Motion Applications
There are many different applications of harmonic motion in the world, things like a
pendulum which is used to find measurements (angles), and the period, frequency and

amplitude are all dependant on the length of the string the pendulum is swinging from
as well as gravity. Lower gravity or a shorter string will make the pendulum oscillate
faster than ones with longer strings and higher gravity. Another example of harmonic
motion is a seismograph which is used to measure the tremors caused by an
earthquake. On a seismograph the amplitude, frequency, and period are related to the
strength of the earthquake and how long the tremors last.
Throughout this project my opinion on how trigonometry can be applied in the world
didnt really change because I knew it could be used for these kinds of things but I never
actually got to see it in action before this and now it has all come together and I have a
greater understanding of how to actually apply it in the real world. While working on this
course I learned a lot of useful information that will help me in other courses specifically
things like trigonometric functions and summations applying to my computer
programming. Also while working on this project I learned how to type mathematically
through the use of inserting equations and shortcut keys like ctrl + = to type in
subscript and shift + crtl + = for superscripts.