Simplifying trig expression for Laplace transform

2.5k Views Asked by At

I'm working on the following Laplace transform problem at the moment, and I'm a little stuck.

$$\mathcal{L} \{\sin(2x)\cos(5x) \}$$

I don't recall any trig identity that would apply here. I know that

$$\sin(2x) = 2\sin(x)\cos(x)$$

But I'm not sure if that applies in this situation. If you guys could point in the right direction I'd be most appreciative.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On BEST ANSWER

By the addition theorem for the sine, we can write

$$\begin{align}\sin (7x) &= \sin (5x + 2x) = \sin (5x)\cos (2x) + \sin(2x)\cos (5x)\\ \sin (3x) &= \sin (5x - 2x) = \sin (5x) \cos (2x) - \sin (2x)\cos (5x), \end{align}$$

and hence

$$\sin(2x)\cos(5x) = \frac12 \bigl(\sin (7x) - \sin (3x)\bigr).$$

Therefore

$$\mathcal{L}\{\sin(2x)\cos(5x)\} = \frac12 \bigl(\mathcal{L}\{\sin (7x)\} - \mathcal{L}\{\sin (3x)\}\bigr).$$