cosec

TX123

I have to make a graph of Cosec^4(theta/2) vs X. But im not sure how to get Cosec^4. any suggestions?

kaki

I basically don't know what the heck I'm on about, so this is just a random musing...but I think cosec is related to sin^-1. Not sure how you raise this to a power though...

Michael Collins

Yeh, as kaki says cosec(x) is simply 1/sin(x). Note that the function you give is constant with x, did you mean this?

If you really meant cosec^4(x/2) vs x, then just plug values of x in sin(x/2), raise it to the fourth power, then invert it. Now you have your corresponding y-coordinate. Otherwise it's just a constant function.

Fremen

Well, this is what it looks like.
Bloody hell, that's a bit of a rough assignment.
I can't think of a good way to graph it without a computer off the top of my head

Michael Collins

That looks pretty awful alright. Maybe they only have to plot a range near pi/2 where it should look nice.

Excuse me for going off topic for a bit:
How do you find using Mathematica Fremen? I use Maple for CAS stuff mostly and MATLAB for numerics, but from what I've seen of Mathematica it looks a good bit more powerful...

Fremen

I haven't used it heavily at all. I only "liberated" a copy from the internet recently for doing stuff like this. I'm taking a numerical methods course which is partially based on it, so it's handy to have.
You usually hear maple, mathematica and matlab mentioned in one breath so I don't think there's all that much difference.

From what I've read, mathematica pulls ahead a little when it comes to symbolic differentiation and integration. I'm not sure what the downside is.

ircoha

Would appreciate any comparative info/comments etc on the above.

Matlab is the only one I have seen books on in Waterstones etc

ps found a book on Mathcad today, so adding to list

Thanks

LeixlipRed

Mathlab leans towards the programming end of things. ie, finding numerical solutions to PDEs, etc whereas Maple's more on the lightweight side of things. ie it's more of a teaching tool as such. Maple is far easier to use though. That summary is probably a gross simplification though as I never tried to use Mathlab to do simple stuff and never used Maple for anything more complicated that a for loop. Suppose it depends on what you're trying to do. I've no experience with mathematica or Mathcad

Michael Collins

Yes, I'd agree that MATLAB is largely a numerical program. There's a symbolic maths toolbox for it but I've never used it. MATLAB excells in the large data processing kind of tasks like communication systems simulation or dataset optimisation - or anything that can be done using matrix-type calculations (that's what MATLAB stands for, MATrix LABratory).

I like Maple for different reasons, as Leixlip says, it's a great teaching tool. You can do up a quick plot to get your point across very easily. Solve any system of linear - and some nonlinear - equations symbolically. Solve ODEs / PDEs. Although anytime I have a real (i.e. a highly nonlinear simultaneous set of equations) task for it solve it seems to get kinda confused. It doesn't handle complex numbers particularly well either. But if it was up to me I'd make sure it was thought in every undergrad maths / science / engineering course!