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Author Topic: Why do we call it a sine wave....?  (Read 1935 times)

Jonathan Johnson

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Why do we call it a sine wave....?
« on: February 02, 2014, 10:52:48 PM »

Why do we call a signal of a single frequency and constant amplitude a sine wave and not a cosine wave? On a graph, they look exactly the same, though the cosine wave is phase shifted by 90 degrees.

To put it another way, why is the term sine wave preferred over cosine wave?
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Stop confusing the issue with facts and logic!

John Roberts {JR}

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Re: Why do we call it a sine wave....?
« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2014, 11:23:05 PM »

Because a sinusoid is 0V at 0', and 2pi and so on.

JR

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Pete Erskine

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Re: Why do we call it a sine wave....?
« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2014, 11:26:09 PM »

Why do we call a signal of a single frequency and constant amplitude a sine wave and not a cosine wave? On a graph, they look exactly the same, though the cosine wave is phase shifted by 90 degrees.

To put it another way, why is the term sine wave preferred over cosine wave?

Before there was cosine...

Etymology
Etymologically, the word sine derives from the Sanskrit word for chord, jiva*(jya being its more popular synonym). This was transliterated in Arabic as jiba جــيــب, abbreviated jb جــــب . Since Arabic is written without short vowels, "jb" was interpreted as the word jaib جــيــب, which means "bosom", when the Arabic text was translated in the 12th century into Latin by Gerard of Cremona. The translator used the Latin equivalent for "bosom", sinus (which means "bosom" or "bay" or "fold") [8][9] The English form sine was introduced in the 1590s.
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Pete Erskine
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Re: Why do we call it a sine wave....?
« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2014, 11:26:09 PM »


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