6 Sine wave factoids

[Sharma]

Surveying, navigation and astronomy all rely on sin and cos for the position of objects and other calculations.

Music is composed of waves of different frequencies and amplitudes and these can be described using sin/cos. In fact most anything involving sound waves will rely on sin/cos.

Ballistic trajectories rely on sin/cos, and there are numerous other uses of them in physics.

Space flight relies on calculations and conversions to polar coordinates. So do satellites.

GPS and cellphones rely on triangulation and formulas involving sin/cos.

Signal transmission, e.g. TV and radio broadcasting, involves waves described with sin/cos waves.

[Sharma]

Few more…

1. Electronic communication
Most radio communication is based on the use of combinations of sines and cosine waves.

2. Thermal analysis
The heat equation is used to model how things get hot (electronics, spacecraft, ovens, etc). This equation is usually solved using sums of sines and cosines.

3. Signal Processing

The whole area of digital signal processing, which is used for HDTV and digital audio, is based on using sums of sines and cosines.

4. Geology

Earthquakes are modeled using the wave equation, which is frequently solved using sums of sines and cosines.

5. Building design

Buildings need to be designed to resist wind and earthquakes. The effect of waves on buildings is often modeled using sines and cosines to simulate wind and earth motion. These simulations determine how the buildings oscillate, which is also modeled by sines and cosines.

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