Monday, August 7, 2017

trigonometry - Why is such sum of cosines always zero?

[INTRO]


In such arrangement of identical charged particles named $P_1$, $P_2$, ..., $P_n$ (In this diagram $n=5$), the electric field in the center is always zero.


arrangement


The electric field is given by this equation:


$$\vec F=k\frac{q}{r^2}\hat r$$


Where $\hat r$ points to the radial direction.


If $2|n$, then the forces are obvious canceled by symetry.


If $n$ is odd, again the components of forces in the $y$ axis cancel by symetry. But for the $x$ direction the components cancel if this condition is true:



$$\sum_{c=0}^{n-1}\cos(c \theta)=0 \ \ \ \ \ \ \theta=\frac{2\pi}n$$


[END OF INTRO]


My main problem is to prove for any $n$, this relation holds:


$$\sum_{c=0}^{n-1}\cos(2\pi \frac{c}{n})=0$$

No comments:

Post a Comment

analysis - Injection, making bijection

I have injection $f \colon A \rightarrow B$ and I want to get bijection. Can I just resting codomain to $f(A)$? I know that every function i...