3 ms·
Responding to this part in the article: > I’m not entirely sure about the intuitive meaning of “taking the derivative and dividing by 2π”. Is there some sort o
by alecst 3y ago
Responding to this part in the article:
> I’m not entirely sure about the intuitive meaning of “taking the derivative and dividing by 2π”. Is there some sort of fundamental connection to periodic functions?
If you have a function f(x) where x is measured in radians, and there are 2pi radians per turn, then you can change variables.
Let t represent turns. One turn is 2*pi rad, and you want t = 1 when you've gone all the way around in x, so t = x/2pi.
By the chain rule,
df(x)/dx = df(t)/dt dt/dx = 1/2pi * df(t)/dt
So I think this might be the meaning you're looking for when you do the rescaling of the derivative.
You're using turns as units instead of radians. cos(x=2pi)=cos(t=1)=1, and so on.
- killthebuddha 3y agoFWIW they mention this in the article: > I like this, because it kind of eliminates the need for radians: the x in usin(x) has the unit of “turns”. I think this is conceptually much simpler.