Question

I need to find rp for each x but I’m having a hard time because matlab gives me this error

Error in enee_408e_hw2_pb1 (line 6)
rp=(z2*cos(t2)-z1*cos(x))/(z2*cos(t2)+z1*cos(x))

here is my code

x=0:.01:pi/2;
n2=1.7;
t2=asin(sin(x)/n2);
z1=377*cos(x);
z2=377\cos(x);
rp=(z2*cos(t2)-z1*cos(x))/(z2*cos(t2)+z1*cos(x));

I want to calculate rp for each angle from 0 to pi/2 and then plot it. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Every operation is perform on same cell in z1 and z2. Matlab/Ocatave calculate enquation based on variable’s type. So if you put * between vectors it try to calculate cross product. Probably problem was \, I have no idea what Matlab tried to do with it. Adding . before operator change approach to more natural (for non mathematical folks) and multiply corresponding cells.
But still I’m not sure it this is what you expected

rp=(z2.*cos(t2)-z1.*cos(x))./(z2.*cos(t2)+z1.*cos(x));