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Intuitive Understanding of Sine Waves – BetterExplained

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Sine waves confused me. Yes, I can mumble "SOH CAH TOA" and draw lines within triangles. But what does it mean? I was stuck thinking sine had to be extracted from other shapes. A quick analogy: You: Geometry is about shapes, lines, and so on. Alien: Oh? Can you show me a line? You (looking around): Uh... see that brick, there? A line is one edge of that brick. Alien: So lines are part of a shape? You: Sort of. Yes, most shapes have lines in them. But a line is a basic concept on its own: a beam of light, a route on a map, or even-- Alien: Bricks have lines. Lines come from bricks. Bricks bricks bricks. Most math classes are exactly this. "Circles have sine. Sine comes from circles. Circles circles circles." Argh! No - circles are one example of sine. In a sentence: Sine is a natural sway, the epitome of smoothness: it makes circles "circular" in the same way lines make squares "square". Let's build our intuition by seeing sine as its own shape, and then understand how it fits into circ

Sine waves confused me. Yes, I can mumble "SOH CAH TOA" and draw lines within triangles. But what does it mean ? I was stuck thinking sine had to be extracted from other shapes. A quick analogy: You: Geometry is about shapes, lines, and so on. Alien: Oh? Can you show me a line? You (looking around): Uh... see that brick, there? A line is one edge of that brick. Alien: So lines are part of a shape? You: Sort of. Yes, most shapes have lines in them. But a line is a basic concept on its own: a beam of light, a route on a map, or even-- Alien: Bricks have lines. Lines come from bricks. Bricks bric

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