Solutions below are from Monika Pawlowska, Warsaw, Poland; Andrei Lazanu, Bucharest,
Romania; Chris Tynan, St Bees School, Cumbria; Shu Cao, Oxford High School.
There are several ways to draw the graphs to achieve the given pattern. Can you produce the same
set of graphs using the cosine function?
Here is Monika's method using reflections and translations of the graph of
.
To form the pattern, you need functions
, (I mean
and
where
is an integer).
The graph of
is symmetrical to
with respect to the x-axis - when you
change the sign, the function is reflected; when
increases or decreases, the curve
'goes' 2 units upwards or downwards (it's translated).
The graphs visible in the picture are for
.
Chris's method uses only translations of the graph of
.
First let's say
. It's obvious that this
satisfies one of the lines given. Also, the transformations to
translate the graph
units in the y direction (1) (
may be positive or negative).
Also,
translates the graph
units in the x direction (2).
Using (1), we can identify the equations of four more graphs,
which will be: