Wednesday, April 1

Today:
In Lecture: More 10.1 (parametric equations),
Office hours today: 2:00-3:00 in PDL C-326
To Do:
Read Textbook 10.1, 2.1-2.2
WORK ON HOMEWORK (in Webassign).
Hwk 1 closes Friday night (parametric eqs. + some tangents)
Have Questions?
Quiz section tomorrow
Office hours
Math Study Center (in CMU B-014, 9:30am-9:30pm)
CLUE (MGH Commons, see link on website for schedule)

I Parametric Curves

Question 1:

What curve is parameterized by the following parametric equations?

A) a line
B) a parabola
C) an ellipse
D) a circle
E) a sinusoidal curve
F) no idea

Question 2:

What curve is parameterized by the following parametric equations?

(hint: find the Cartesian equation of this curve)

The standard parameterization of

Uniform Circular Motion is:

where:
radius of the circle

Example:
Suppose an object moves counterclockwise along the unit circle, at constant velocity,
traveling a full rotation per minute, starting at the bottom of the circle at time
.
Let's find the parametric equations for its motion.

More examples:

(Try it: http://graphsketch.com/parametric.php)

What kind of curve and motion is given by each of the following parameterizations:

a)

b)

d)

f)

g)

Question:

Which of the following parameterizations are correct for an object moving on a circle of radius 3,
centered at (0,0), starting at the top of the circle, and moving in clockwise direction?

A)

B)

C)

D)

One more Example:

Suppose that the position of one particle at time t is given by

and the position of a second particle is given by

a) Sketch the paths of the two particles, and find their intersection points.

b) Do the particles collide?

Summary
1. Parametric equations are any set of equations
and
that give the and coordinates of points on a curve separately, in terms of a parameter .
2. To graph a curve given by parametric equations:
(a) Select various values of and evaluate the functions to find the corresponding points
(b) Plot these points and indicate the corresponding time and direction of movement.

3. To find the xy-equation for the curve traced out by the motion, try to eliminate the parameter by:
(a) Solving for in one equation and substituting in the other to get an eq. in x and y.
(b) Use some identity to combine the equations (ex:
).
4. Why study parameterized curves?
Extra data: a parameterized curve encodes not only the coordinates of the points on the curve, but also a
certain motion along the curve.
Can study more complicated curves, which do not have nice Cartesian equations

5. Types of parametrizations we studied:

a) Uniform Linear Motion (motion along a line at constant speed):

where
and

are the coordinates at

are the horizontal and vertical velocities (rates of change of each coordinate with respect to time)

b) Uniform Circular Motion (An object moving on a circular path at constant velocity

where:
radius of the circle