For a tank , , let the left wall move by with small amplitude, while the right wall and bottom remain fixed. A periodic velocity potential has . Add the harmonic function
to obtain with homogeneous wall and bottom Neumann boundary conditions. Thus , where . The linearized free-surface boundary conditions give at , with and
Its Fourier cosine coefficients give the title expression for and . In particular for . The denominator vanishes at the corresponding normal modes of surface gravity waves in a rectangular tank, giving resonance. Exact undamped resonance produces secular growth instead of a bounded periodic response. Free transients do not generally decay in this inviscid model.
Take . This function is not a polynomial: it is nonzero and satisfies , whereas a nonzero polynomial cannot satisfy that identity, since taking two derivatives reduces its degree or gives zero.
By Fourier orthogonality, the Fourier sine series consists of the single term . Thus every truncation with is exact, including at the endpoints. In contrast, using the product-to-sum trigonometric identity in its Fourier cosine coefficients gives
For example, follows by integrating the two resulting sine terms. Therefore the Fourier cosine series is
Every finite cosine truncation omits infinitely many nonzero Fourier coefficients, so Parseval's identity gives it strictly positive squared L2 norm error. The one-term sine representation has zero error in both the L2 norm and the supremum norm, proving the requested advantage.