I’m a senior in high school and I don’t know how to choose sin or cos in physics problem. For the most part I memorised them. For example, why is the flux of a magnetic field = BAcos(angle) and why is the electromagnetic force = ILBsin(angle).
The last two years weren’t normal as we studied online so it’s highly appreciated if someone can eli5 and fill in the gaps for me.
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So you may be familiar with the idea that E and B are vectors, not scalars. Whenever you multiply two vectors together, you have a choice of two ways to do it: the *scalar* product (what component of vector 1 is in the direction of vector 2), and the *vector* product (uh… I can’t explain this to a 5yo, it’s basically ‘find a vector at right angles to these two whose length is determined by their lengths’).
The scalar product has a cosine in it and produces a scalar. The vector product has a sine in it and produces a vector.
So the flux, a scalar, is a scalar product with a cosine in it. The force, a vector, is a vector product with a sine in it.
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