this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2024
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xkcd

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https://xkcd.com/2904

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'At the stroke of midnight, your brother will be hurtling sideways at an altitude of 150 meters' is a regular physics prediction about your nonmagical trebuchet, whereas 'you are cursed to build a brother-launching trebuchet' falls out of the Lagrangian.

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[โ€“] azulavoir@sh.itjust.works 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Imagine taking a line and rolling it around a circle so that it's always touching. Like a wheel on a flat surface, but from the wheel's perspective.

Sine and cosine are the X and Y coordinates of the intersection point, and tangent is the slope of the line.

You can also relate it back to acoustics!

[โ€“] 0ops@lemm.ee 1 points 8 months ago