News
Progressive Labor Party Organizes Solidarity March With Harvard Yard Encampment
News
Encampment Protesters Briefly Raise 3 Palestinian Flags Over Harvard Yard
News
Mayor Wu Cancels Harvard Event After Affinity Groups Withdraw Over Emerson Encampment Police Response
News
Harvard Yard To Remain Indefinitely Closed Amid Encampment
News
HUPD Chief Says Harvard Yard Encampment is Peaceful, Defends Students’ Right to Protest
At the first meeting of the Harvard Mathematics Club last night, Professor W. F. Osgood '86, Head of the Mathematics Department, spoke on the subject, "The Trigonometric Functions Treated Analytically."
In his talk, Professor Osgood brought out these points: "The trigonometric functions, sin x and cos x, are ordinarily defined by means of a right triangle; thus sin x equals a divided by c, etc. This procedure is natural, since the elementary facts of geometry appeal most strongly to our intuition.
"There are, however, other phenomena in physics of coordinate importance with those of geometry, namely, the phenomena of vibrating systems, of which the pendulum is a familiar example. The simplest type of oscillatory motion is governed by a differential equation of the second order, and two of the solutions of this equation are the functions sin x and cos x. By means of the differential equation the leading properties of these functions can be deduced with ease, and thus the foundations of trigonomemtry are laid."
Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.