The Unit Circle

I could've sworn I had something more interesting to write about the other day (maybe that yesterday morning when I attempted to shout profanities at at fellow driver, I discovered I had completely lost my voice from this nasty cold/flu thing I've got...splendid for the other driver), but I've completely forgotten it. So today I'm here to talk to you about the Unit Circle. And just so you know, whenever I am here writing about such nonsense, it is usually because I'm doing my best to procrastinate studying. I do that well. But have no fear because I just got 100% on my last Pre-Calc test...yay!!

So what is the Unit Circle, you might (or might not) ask? Here it is:

Ahh, yes. Nice. But what is it?

You got me, but I've got about a week and a half to figure it out, because that's when the exam is. I mean, I kind of get it. It's a circle with a radius of 1. And all those crazy points around the circle are the coordinates of points that lie on the circle at intervals of radians (not entirely sure what that is, but that's what those fractions of Pi represent). It all stems from the equations of circles. 2(pi)r is the circumference, right? Well, see all those Pi's? Apparently there's a deeper meaning to life. 

Remember sine, cosine, tangent, cotangent, secant and cosecant? Yeah me neither, but they're in there too. You just can't see them. But you have to know them...and their inverses (aaghhh!! inverses!!!).

So in attempt to simplify and find an easy way to memorize the Unit Circle (because we can't use notes or calculators on the exam) I gave Pinterest a little search.Because what better way to distract you from doing what you should be doing than pinning on Pinterest?

I've come to the conclusion that the Unit Circle is a sort of coat of arms for math geeks everywhere. Like the beloved 26.2 for marathon runners, 70.3 for triathletes, a shark fin for surfers (or Shark Finn Soup if you've met her), palm trees for Californians, crosses for Christians, I don't know-like an emblem to represent your tribe. 

They make Unit Circle necklaces. T-shirts and earrings. One dude had a Unit Circle tattoo on his forearm which is quite genius. He must've had my math teacher. Unit Circle clocks and Unit Circle banana cream pie (ha! Get it? Pie?). 

I'm making a genuine effort to fall in love with math. I don't know if you can just make yourself love something, but I'm giving it a shot anyway. But I don't totally love the Unit Circle. I do love the interesting graphs of the trig functions on the Unit Circle (sine waves are fun!). They make for good doodling. 

I feel like there's something there though, like there will be an "aha" moment when the Unit Circle and I finally see eye to eye. Maybe then I'll get myself a Unit Circle tattoo (or not). I feel like I almost had something one day as the instructor drew swirls around the circle and it coincided with repeated sine and cosine graphs, but then I lost it. It went back to being funny numbers on a circular chart. Maybe I'll consult with "The Joy of X" and see if he's got something to say on the Unit Circle. That would help me make sense of it all. 

The other day while researching the Never Ending Storm in Venezuela (Catatumbo Lightning) I came across this amazing photo of volcanic lightning.

Yeah, that's real. Google "volcanic lightning", you get some amazing photos. I think that is quite possibly the most beautiful thing on earth. I would put that on my wall. 

The Unit Circle? Meh...