Cosine functions applied to tidal modelling

DanielF

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Apr 29, 2020
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I'm currently working through circular functions in my current topic. I have been given the task to apply the function, y=acos(n(x-b))+c to tidal modeling.

We have been told to use high and low tide data for an entire week from a town in Australia. I'm not 100% sure what is the best way to inteprit this data. would it be a good idea to average the data out over the week to figure what model best covers the entire week?
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I understand that the variable a is the amplitude and that c is the vertical offset. However I don't understand what effect the variables n, x and b have on this function. I understand that one of these variables has to be time (elapsed since start of week) and that another one of the variables is related to the period of the function.

Full task instructions in case my description was incorrect:
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Any help in understanding how to approach this problem would be greatly appreciated as I found this area of maths very interesting! Thanks in advance
 
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