MATHEMATICIAN DATE BAND

BUG PATHS #2
PRECALCULUS | PACKER COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE

Were going to do the bug path thing one more time. Weve been having our bug walk around regular polygons
but if you remember from geometry, if we have more and more sides to a regular polygon, it starts looking more
and more like a

circle!

Huzzah! So were going to mix things up and have the bug walk around a circle instead of a polygon.

The setup is the same. The bug starts at (1,0) and walks counterclockwise
around the circle at a rate of 1 unit/second. Let W give the coordinates of
the bug at time t. We interpret negative values of t as being moments in
time before the start of the experiment.

Like you did before, make a prediction.
Make a quick sketch of the x-coordinate of the bug versus time, and a
quick sketch of the y-coordinate of the bug versus time. (Label your
axes!)

Again, this is just prediction! Dont worry about being exact, and its
totally find if you are wrong. I just want to see you reason through the
general shape of the graphs.

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1. When does the bug make a full revolution, and come back full circle
(hahaha)?



2. When is the bug halfway around the circle? Where is the bug at that time?



3. When is the bug a quarter of the way around the circle? Where is the bug at
that time?




4. When is the bug an eighth of the way around the circle? Where is the bug at that time? [Hint: Pizza!]

5. When is the bug a twelfth of the way around the circle? Where is the bug at that time? [Hint: Pizza!]

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6. On the unit circle below, write down the exact time the bug will be there, and the exact position of the bug.

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7. Lets name the function that gives the x-coordinate of the bug as a function of t. Lets call it H(t). Plot H(t)
below. Some nice gridmarks are provided for you. (Youre welcome.)

8. Lets also name the function that gives the y-coordinate of the bug as a function of t. Lets call it K(t). Plot K(t)
below.

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9. Write down all of your observations about the graphs of H(t) and K(t) below.

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10. The path the bug followed is called the unit circle, which refers to the circle centered at __________ with
radius __________.

11. Our graphs give the bugs x- and y-coordinates as a function of time, measured in units per second (as a
reminder, we named the function whose outputs were the bugs x-coordinates H(t), and we named the function
whose outputs were the bugs y-coordinates K(t) ).

According to these functions,

H ( ) = _____ because the bugs ________________________ after _____ seconds is _____.


K = _____ because the bugs ________________________ after _____ seconds is _____.
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H (6 ) = _____ because the bugs ________________________ after _____ seconds is _____.

12. But it would be equally useful to describe the bugs position as a function of the angle of rotation. Lets try
using those angles of rotations as our inputs, instead of time.

For instance:

H(one quarter of a counterclockwise revolution) = _________ because the bugs

___________________________________ when it has traveled ____________________

___________________________________________________ around the circle is ______.


K(three complete counterclockwise revolutions) = _________ because the bugs

___________________________________ when it has traveled ____________________

___________________________________________________ around the circle is ______.



H(a half of a counterclockwise revolution) = _________ because the bugs

___________________________________ when it has traveled ____________________

___________________________________________________ around the circle is ______.

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13. That was kind of annoying and wordy. But wait! We already have a unit for angle measures: degrees! So
instead of describing our angle of rotation in words, lets just use degrees.

To make sure were following the same path, lets agree as a convention that anytime we name a positive
angle measure, we are traveling counterclockwise around the circle; any time we name a negative angle
measure, we are traveling clockwise around the circle.

H(45)= _____ because the bugs ________________________ after traveling

_________________________________________________ along the circle is ______.

H(-90)= _____ because the bugs ________________________ after traveling

_________________________________________________ along the circle is ______.

K(210)= _____ because the bugs ________________________ after traveling

_________________________________________________ along the circle is ______.

14. That was a little easier. But wouldnt it be so great if we could define a unit for angle measures that
corresponded with the bug story? What if we defined a NEW unit of angle measure, so that the statements from
Question 11 were all still correct, but were using angles of rotation as inputs?

Reminder: in Question 11, we said .

H ( ) = -1 because the bugs x-coordinate after seconds is -1 .

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K = because the bugs y-coordinate after seconds is .
6 2 6 2

H (6 ) = 1 because the bugs x-coordinate after 6 seconds is 1 .

WE CAN! Lets define a new unit of angle measure and call it radians. Radians are defined in a way that make
them consistent with our original bug story. So, since it took 2 seconds for the bug to travel around the unit
circle, we define 2 radians as the angle corresponding with one complete revolution.

Thus, the statement

H ( ) = -1 because the bugs x-coordinate after seconds is -1 .

can now be interpreted as

H ( ) = -1 because the bugs x-coordinate after traveling through an angle of radians is -1 .

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15. Lets make sure that our new unit of angle measurement is making sense.


Since 2 radians corresponds with a full revolution around a circle,


radians corresponds with _____________________________ revolution(s)


radians corresponds with _____________________________ revolution(s)
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3
radians corresponds with _____________________________ revolution(s)
2

7 radians corresponds with _____________________________ revolution(s)



radians corresponds with _____________________________ revolution(s)
6

4
radians corresponds with _____________________________ revolution(s)
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16. Its time to move from BUGONOMETRY to TRIGONOMETRY. Get ready for a big surprise.

!!!!!! By modeling the bugs movement along the path, you have generated the graphs associated with sine and
cosine. !!!!!! YOURE A GENIUS!!!!

The graph you created for H(t) is precisely the graph of y = cos( ) .

The graph you created for K(t) is precisely the graph of y = sin( ) .

This gives us a new interpretation of sine and cosine:

Consider an angle (usually called theta and denoted ) centered at the origin and measured counterclockwise
from the positive x-axis. The left ray of that angle intersects the unit circle at some point.

The cosine of that angle is the x-coordinate of the point of intersection.

The sine of that angle is the y-coordinate of the point of intersection.

The great thing is, by defining radians the way we did as angle measurements w/ 2 radians corresponding
with a full rotationthe input/output pairs we have found for sine and cosine are exactly the same as the
input/output pairs we found for H(t) and K(t).

So

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sin( ) = _______ cos = _______ sin( ) = _______
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