As the title says: what is, if any, the sine and cosine of an ellipse?
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$\begingroup$ You're going to have to try harder to ask your question in a way that makes sense. Sine and cosine are functions that take angles as input. $\endgroup$– 2'5 9'2Nov 18, 2016 at 6:35
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1$\begingroup$ Related? (Duplicate?): "Are there parabolic and elliptical functions analogous to the circular and hyperbolic functions sin(h),cos(h), and tan(h)?" $\endgroup$– BlueNov 18, 2016 at 6:37
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$\begingroup$ Your question doesn't make sense. You must have something in mind, but you need to clarify your question. $\endgroup$– copper.hatNov 18, 2016 at 6:57
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1 Answer
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An ellipse is a curve, so the concept of taking a sin or cos of it doesn't make much sense.
However, an ellipse with semi-major axis $a$ and semi-minor axis $b$ can be described by the equations $x = a \cos(t), y=b\sin(t)$ as $t$ goes from $0$ to $2\pi$.
answered Nov 18, 2016 at 6:38
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$\begingroup$ You can talk about the sine or cosine of the set of x or y values, but you have to be careful. That is not standard terminology, so you have to made clear what you mean. $\endgroup$ Nov 18, 2016 at 6:58