Excel spreadsheets provide a powerful tool for mathematical investigations.
In particular, lets look at the cycloid from assignment 10. The following formulas were entered into the spreadsheet
The result is a table of values for x and y, varying with t. The .1 increments for y are arbitrary - they may be as big or small as you deem appropriate for your application.
Next, I used the "Insert" "Chart" commands and chose "XY Scatter" to create the following plot of the points above. Looks like our cycloid, doesn't it!
Excel provides other tools for use with sets of coordinates, such as the functions LINEST, SLOPE, and INTERCEPT which we will not pursue here.
You can view the actual spreadsheet used above by clicking here.