solving a periodic function
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg113930] solving a periodic function
- From: Michael Stern <nycstern at gmail.com>
- Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2010 07:06:24 -0500 (EST)
I have a fun little puzzle that I solved via other methods, but would
like to know if there might have been a more elegant method via
Mathematica.
I wanted to figure out the times during the day at which the hour hand
and minute hand of a clock line up perfectly. I worked in terms of "unit
time", in which the 12 hours of the clock are represented as ranging
from 0 to 1. It is then easy to arrive at
unitTimeToMinuteAngle[unitTime_Real] := 4320 Mod[unitTime, 1/12]
unitTimeToHourAngle[unitTime_Real] := unitTime*360 // N
and
unstraightness[unitTime_] :=
Abs[Abs[unitTimeToMinuteAngle[unitTime] -
unitTimeToHourAngle[unitTime]] - 180]
Plotting the problem shows that we have 11 solutions in each 12 hour
period.
Plot[unstraightness[unitTime], {unitTime, 0, .999999}]
I would like to be able to solve the problem with something like
NSolve[unstraightness[unitTime] == 0, unitTime]
but "This system cannot be solved with the methods available to NSolve,"
and I get similar errors with other Mathematica solution methods.
Ultimately, I solved via brute force, finding the "unstraightness" for a
vast number of time slices and selecting the 11 straightest. The results
are good, but there must be an elegant way to have found this in a few
mathematica commands. I'd appreciate any insight.
-Michael
p.s. the solutions are evenly spaced at the following times
{
{"12:32:43.6364"},
{"1:38:10.9091"},
{"2:43:38.1818"},
{"3:49:5.45455"},
{"4:54:32.7273"},
{"6:00:00."},
{"7:5:27.2727"},
{"8:10:54.5455"},
{"9:16:21.8182"},
{"10:21:49.0909"},
{"11:27:16.3636"}
}