Originally posted by: frostedflakes
What are hyperbolic trig functions used for anyways? I've heard of them, but obviously not very familiar with them. I'm an engineer, not a math major, so cut me some slack.
They come up uh... rarely, lol. Oftentimes when you use hyperbolics you could just as easily use the equivalent exponential. This is a lot less convenient with trig functions.
Regular/hyperbolic functions are really rather closely related. In a sense, hyperbolic trig functions are like "real" trig functions since cosh(ix) = cos(x):
sin(x) = (exp(ix) - exp(-ix))/2i, cos(x) = (exp(ix) + exp(-ix))/2
The exp(ix) terms (i means sqrt(-1) here) are what produce the oscillatory nature.
sinh(x) = (exp(x) - exp(-x))/2, cosh(x) = (exp(x) + exp(-x))/2
The hyperbolic trig functions are kinda like two exponentials back-to-back. For x >> 0 or x << 0, one of the exponential terms dominates while the other will be oppositely small.
Oh and the reason they're called hyperbolic trig functions is b/c (cosh(x),sinh(x)) traces out a hyperbola. Recall that (cos(x),sin(x)) traces out the unit circle.
I guess only times I've really seen them are:
1) integration tricks (like above)
2) solution of some ODEs: for example, the equation that describes how a rope will hang. The shape is called a "catenary" and it's decribed by cosh. (Google for more info)
3) solutions of Laplace's equation which applies to like, potential flow/gravitational fields/electromagnetics and heat transfer (b/c laplace's eqn is like a steady-state heat transfer problem).