4.2  It’s a Sine


Here is the quintessential waveform shape, based a graph of y = sin(x).  The amplitude (A) and wavelength (λ), as defined in the pictures are important features when it comes to writing an equation for a function like this.

                                Fig 4-i

This is not a wave yet, because it isn’t changing in any way with time. But we’ll practise manipulating the equation to account for variations in this function, before we introduce the time complication.

Once you're comfortable with this kind of function, the next step is to introduce a time dimension, so that we'll have a wave.