1 00:00:00,012 --> 00:00:03,560 >> [music]. Sine is a periodic function. 2 00:00:03,560 --> 00:00:10,525 You follow the graph of sine just wiggles up and down, forever and ever. 3 00:00:10,525 --> 00:00:15,235 Let's try to get a sense as to why this is the case. 4 00:00:15,235 --> 00:00:22,196 Why does the graph of sine look like this? Why is sine moving up and down? 5 00:00:22,196 --> 00:00:27,140 To get some intuition for this, let's first imagine a very different situation. 6 00:00:27,140 --> 00:00:30,179 Let's suppose that velocity is equal to position. 7 00:00:30,179 --> 00:00:34,345 And, I gotta imagine I'm starting here, and I start moving, right? 8 00:00:34,345 --> 00:00:38,592 And I'm going to start moving slowly at first, but as my position increases, I'm 9 00:00:38,592 --> 00:00:40,943 going to be moving faster and faster, right? 10 00:00:40,943 --> 00:00:45,437 As my position is larger and larger, my velocity becomes larger and larger, which 11 00:00:45,437 --> 00:00:50,076 then makes my position larger and larger. So if this is the way the world works, I'm 12 00:00:50,076 --> 00:00:52,768 not bouncing around from minus 1 to 1 like sine. 13 00:00:52,768 --> 00:00:55,773 I'm just being thrown off towards infinity. 14 00:00:55,773 --> 00:01:01,186 We know what that situation looks like. If f of t is my position at time t, then f 15 00:01:01,186 --> 00:01:05,347 prime of t, the derivative of f at t is my velocity at time t. 16 00:01:05,347 --> 00:01:11,093 So saying that velocity equals position is just saying I've got some function whose 17 00:01:11,093 --> 00:01:15,543 derivative is equal to itself. And, we know an example of that. 18 00:01:15,543 --> 00:01:19,183 F of t equals e to the t is one example of such a function. 19 00:01:19,183 --> 00:01:23,963 So, to cook up a different situation, let's imagine something a little bit 20 00:01:23,963 --> 00:01:27,002 different. Instead, suppose that we're in the 21 00:01:27,002 --> 00:01:30,817 situation where my acceleration is negative my position. 22 00:01:30,817 --> 00:01:35,782 So that means that if I'm standing over here, where my position is positive, I'm 23 00:01:35,782 --> 00:01:40,732 to the right of zero, then my acceleration is negative and I'm being pulled back 24 00:01:40,732 --> 00:01:44,326 towards zero. And then, as I swing past toward zero, now 25 00:01:44,326 --> 00:01:48,734 my position is negative, so my acceleration is positive, so I'm being 26 00:01:48,734 --> 00:01:54,106 pulled back in the other direction. And that's kind of producing this swinging 27 00:01:54,106 --> 00:01:59,185 back and forth across 0. This situation comes up physically in the 28 00:01:59,185 --> 00:02:03,400 real world. If you attach a spring to the ceiling, the 29 00:02:03,400 --> 00:02:09,204 spring's acceleration is proportional to negative its displacement. 30 00:02:09,205 --> 00:02:12,633 There's a function also that realizes this model. 31 00:02:12,633 --> 00:02:17,985 To say that acceleration is negative position is as it is the second derivative 32 00:02:17,985 --> 00:02:22,557 of my position, which is my acceleration, is negative my function. 33 00:02:22,558 --> 00:02:29,538 And yeah, we know an example. If f is sine of t, then the derivative of 34 00:02:29,538 --> 00:02:35,413 sin is cosine. And the derivative of cosine, which is the 35 00:02:35,413 --> 00:02:40,181 second derivative of sine, is minus sine of t. 36 00:02:40,181 --> 00:02:44,772 And we know another function just like this. 37 00:02:44,772 --> 00:02:51,030 Look if, if g of t is cosine of t, then g prime of t is minus sine of t. 38 00:02:51,030 --> 00:02:58,005 But then, g double prime of t, the second derivative of cosine, is just minus cosine 39 00:02:58,005 --> 00:03:02,027 of t, because the derivative of sine is cosine. 40 00:03:02,027 --> 00:03:08,633 So cosine is another example of a function whose second derivative is negative 41 00:03:08,633 --> 00:03:12,766 itself. We know even more functions like this. 42 00:03:12,766 --> 00:03:19,561 For instance, what if f were the function f of t equals 17 sine t minus 17 cosine t? 43 00:03:19,561 --> 00:03:25,837 Well then, the derivative of f would be 17 times the derivative of sine, which is 44 00:03:25,837 --> 00:03:29,804 cosine, minus 17 times the derivative of cosine. 45 00:03:29,804 --> 00:03:32,981 But the derivative of cosine is minus sine. 46 00:03:32,981 --> 00:03:37,046 So this is plus 17 sine t. So that's the derivative of f. 47 00:03:37,046 --> 00:03:41,692 The second derivative of f is the derivative of the derivative. 48 00:03:41,692 --> 00:03:48,177 This'll be 17 times the derivative cosine. Which is minus sin, plus the derivative of 49 00:03:48,177 --> 00:03:52,764 sin, which is cosine. So yeah, this is another example of a 50 00:03:52,764 --> 00:03:57,127 function whose second derivative is negative itself. 51 00:03:57,127 --> 00:04:03,337 If I take this function and differentiate it twice, I get negative the original 52 00:04:03,337 --> 00:04:06,626 function. So if you like, the reason why all of 53 00:04:06,626 --> 00:04:11,718 these functions are bouncing up and down like this, is because in every case, the 54 00:04:11,718 --> 00:04:15,091 functions second derivative is negative its value. 55 00:04:15,091 --> 00:04:20,341 When the function is positive, the second derivative is negative, pulling it down. 56 00:04:20,341 --> 00:04:25,822 And when the function's value is negative, the second derivative is positive, pushing 57 00:04:25,822 --> 00:04:34,761 it back up. And so the function bounces up and down 58 00:04:34,761 --> 00:04:38,880 like this forever.