Has anyone else developed a hate for cosine?

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    Cosine
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SUMMARY

The forum discussion centers around the humorous frustrations and preferences regarding the cosine function compared to sine. Participants express their annoyance with cosine's sign changes during differentiation and integration, while some share a fondness for cosine due to its mathematical properties, such as its even terms in the Taylor series. The conversation also touches on the confusion surrounding reciprocal functions like sec(x) and csc(x), with users sharing mnemonic devices to remember them. Overall, the discussion blends humor with genuine mathematical insights, reflecting a light-hearted take on the challenges of trigonometric functions.

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  • Understanding of basic calculus concepts, including differentiation and integration.
  • Familiarity with trigonometric functions, specifically sine and cosine.
  • Knowledge of Taylor series and their applications in mathematics.
  • Awareness of reciprocal trigonometric functions such as secant and cosecant.
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  • Explore the properties of hyperbolic functions, specifically hyperbolic sine and hyperbolic cosine.
  • Learn about the Taylor series expansion for sine and cosine functions.
  • Investigate mnemonic techniques for remembering trigonometric identities and functions.
  • Study the applications of trigonometric functions in real-world scenarios, such as physics and engineering.
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Mathematics students, educators, and anyone interested in the nuances of trigonometric functions and their applications in calculus.

Do you hate cos(x)?

  • yes

    Votes: 7 17.9%
  • no

    Votes: 33 84.6%
  • I hate sin(x) more

    Votes: 3 7.7%

  • Total voters
    39
  • #31
lisab said:
a little phase change

Haha. I get the phase constant joke.
 
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  • #32
I like even functions better than odd ones, so cosine gets the nod. It's a pity that the co- prefix makes it sound like a second-class citizen.
 
  • #33
I think Curious3141 may have already hinted at this, but...

If you don't like the negative sign, you can always embrace the hyperbolic sine and hyperbolic cosine.

\frac{d}{dx}\sinh (x) = \cosh (x)
\frac{d}{dx}\cosh (x) = \sinh (x)
No negative signs there.

Plus, hyperbolic functions come up naturally (a lot) when modeling uniform acceleration* in special relativity.
*(Edit: uniform, proper acceleration, that is.)
 
  • #34
I just noticed the similarity between the phrases hate cosine and haute cuisine. That can't possibly be a coincidence. Especially with ##\pi## involved.
 
  • #35
jbunniii said:
I just noticed the similarity between the phrases hate cosine and haute cuisine. That can't possibly be a coincidence. Especially with ##\pi## involved.

+1! :smile:
 
  • #36
Nikitin said:
Has anyone else developed a hate for cosine?

Cosine ruined my life. When I was in high school, a friend introduced me to cosine. Until that point, all I knew was sine. Sometimes I would solve a tangent at a party, but only if I knew I had a ride home. Cosine was especially troublesome for me... it looked so much like sine that my family and friends never knew the difference.

Once I hit college, and I had a lot of freedom, I started investing more time in cosine. It started harmlessly enough by cutting into my social time, but slowly I became a recluse. Then my school work faltered and I was put on academic probation. I joined a support group during that time, but it only introduced me to more people with the same addiction. We would sit there in meetings and fantasize about cosine in polar coordinates or solving it in higher dimensions. Me and two other guys dropped out of the support group and would spend every night on Wolfram Alpha graphing cosine function after cosine function.

I didn't answer phone calls from family or friends, and I was quickly kicked out of school. I lived on the street for a few months that summer, too ashamed to confront my family. I would scrounge for scraps of pizza in the garbage and would draw the cosine function with the sauce. I lived like that with $cos(π/2) in my pocket.

Finally, I dragged myself back to my family when drawing cos(x) in the sand at elementary school parks landed me in jail several times. They were so happy to see me, but that feeling quickly faded when my addiction started to affect them too. I started drawing cosine on the bathroom mirror in soap which forced my family to experience it when they got out of the shower. They tolerated until my 15 year old brother (who we all suspected partook of sine with his skater friends) got caught at school adding (π/2) to his sine argument in the parking lot during study hall.

I knew I had gone too far. But so did my parents.

They kicked me out of the house and I checked into a mental hospital. With the help of professionals and some hyperbolic trig functions I was able to ween myself off of cosine after about a year, but my family still won't talk to me. It's been four years since I've talked to my parents.

All because of cosine.

Do I hate it? Yes. And it made me hate myself.
 
  • #37
I don't hate cos(x) but I despise all log(x)s that are not ln(x). What kind of sick mind thought those things are a good idea?
 
  • #38
Why did you enable multiple answers for this type of question? :confused:
 

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