Education Technology


VIC: Square Peg in a Round Hole

by Texas Instruments

Objectives

Understand how values for trigonometric functions are generated.

Sketch curves associated with simple polynomials; find stationary points, and local and global maxima and minima; and examine behaviour as x approaches positive / negative infinity.

Vocabulary

Polynomial, degree (of polynomial), derivative, coefficient

About the Lesson

The purpose of this activity is to unveil some of the mystery behind the black box (calculator) that is able to generate trigonometric ratios with the click of a button. The unveiling uses simple polynomial functions and differential calculus. The activity begins with a simple quadratic that shares the x intercepts at x = 0 and x = pi, the quadratic is dilated so that it shares the same turning point in this domain, try it for yourself, the accuracy is really very impressive. A higher degree polynomial is then used to model sin(x), the flexibility of this new polynomial increases the accuracy quite significantly. When a calculus approach is used the resulting polynomial is able to produce sin(x) ratios with a four decimal accuracy, as good as the original ‘trig tables’.