Making Waves

Lets see if we can make some mathematical waves from a circle. Follow these steps in order:
1. Using a protractor and sharp pencil, divide this circle up into arcs that make 10 degree angles at the
centre of the circle. Start from the positive x axis and work your way around.
2. Next draw right angled triangles with the longest side being the radius of the circle, the base along
the x-axis, and the height parallel to the y-axis, the right angle sitting on the
x-axis. The top vertex of each triangle should be the marks you made as
height
you went around the circle. If you do this accurately, the triangles below
will be mirror images of those above the x-axis.
3. Measure the height of each triangle to the nearest millimetre (see ) and
height
put the measurements in the table on the other side of this sheet. The first
row of the table should be the angle the positive x-axis makes with the
radius in an anticlockwise direction. This is easy because the angles just go up in tens. Put your
measurements near the tops of the boxes as we may be able to use the table for something more later
on.

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4. Turn the graph paper provided to landscape mode and draw an x-axis half way up from the bottom.
Draw the y-axis at the very left hand edge of the graph paper.
5. Mark your angles along the x-axis and plot the points made by the (angle, height) pairs you have
made. The height values are measured on the y-axis.
6. Join your points with a smooth a curve as you can. What is this curve called?
7. Repeat this from step 3 again, but this time measure the bases of the triangles, and plot base
against angle on the same axes. Use the space you saved in this table. What have the 2 curves got
in common?

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Making Waves