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Platometer
A planimeter, also known as a platometer, is a measuring instrument used to determine the area of an arbitrary two-dimensional shape. Construction There are several kinds of planimeters, but all operate in a similar way. The precise way in which they are constructed varies, with the main types of mechanical planimeter being polar, linear and Prytz or "hatchet" planimeters. The Swiss mathematician Jakob Amsler-Laffon built the first modern planimeter in 1854, the concept having been pioneered by Johann Martin Hermann in 1814. Many developments followed Amsler's famous planimeter, including electronic versions. The Amsler (polar) type consists of a two-bar linkage. At the end of one link is a pointer, used to trace around the boundary of the shape to be measured. The other end of the linkage pivots freely on a weight that keeps it from moving. Near the junction of the two links is a measuring wheel of calibrated diameter, with a scale to show fine rotation, and worm gearing f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Measuring Instrument
A measuring instrument is a device to measure a physical quantity. In the physical sciences, quality assurance, and engineering, measurement is the activity of obtaining and comparing physical quantities of real-world objects and events. Established standard objects and events are used as units, and the process of measurement gives a number relating the item under study and the referenced unit of measurement. Measuring instruments, and formal test methods which define the instrument's use, are the means by which these relations of numbers are obtained. All measuring instruments are subject to varying degrees of instrument error and measurement uncertainty. These instruments may range from simple objects such as rulers and stopwatches to electron microscopes and particle accelerators. Virtual instrumentation is widely used in the development of modern measuring instruments. Time In the past, a common time measuring instrument was the sundial. Today, the usual measuring instrum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curvimeter
An opisometer, also called a curvimeter, meilograph, or map measurer, is an instrument for measuring the lengths of arbitrary curved lines. Description A simple opisometer consists of a toothed wheel of known circumference on a handle. The wheel is placed in contact with the curved line to be measured and run along its length. By counting the number of teeth passing a mark on the handle while this is done, the length of the line can be ascertained: :line length = wheel circumference × teeth counted/teeth on wheel. In more sophisticated models, sometimes called a chartometer, the wheel is connected via gearing to a rotary dial from which the line length can be directly read. The instrument is most commonly used to measure the lengths of roads, rivers and other line features on maps. Opisometers designed for this purpose provide scales reading the measured distance in kilometers and miles. History Early versions of this instrument were patented in 1873 by the English ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematical Tools
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics with the major subdisciplines of number theory, algebra, geometry, and analysis, respectively. There is no general consensus among mathematicians about a common definition for their academic discipline. Most mathematical activity involves the discovery of properties of abstract objects and the use of pure reason to prove them. These objects consist of either abstractions from nature orin modern mathematicsentities that are stipulated to have certain properties, called axioms. A ''proof'' consists of a succession of applications of deductive rules to already established results. These results include previously proved theorems, axioms, andin case of abstraction from naturesome basic properties that are considered true starting points of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Technical Drawing Tools
Drafting tools may be used for measurement and layout of drawings, or to improve the consistency and speed of creation of standard drawing elements. Tools such as pens and pencils mark the drawing medium. Other tools such as straight edges, assist the operator in drawing straight lines, or assist the operator in drawing complicated shapes repeatedly. Various scales and the protractor are used to measure the lengths of lines and angles, allowing accurate scale drawing to be carried out. The compass is used to draw arcs and circles. A drawing board was used to hold the drawing media in place; later boards included drafting machines that sped the layout of straight lines and angles. Tools such as templates and lettering guides assisted in the drawing of repetitive elements such as circles, ellipses, schematic symbols and text. Other auxiliary tools were used for special drawing purposes or for functions related to the preparation and revision of drawings. The tools used for manual ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dimensional Instruments
A measuring instrument is a device to measure a physical quantity. In the physical sciences, quality assurance, and engineering, measurement is the activity of obtaining and comparing physical quantities of real-world objects and events. Established standard objects and events are used as units, and the process of measurement gives a number relating the item under study and the referenced unit of measurement. Measuring instruments, and formal test methods which define the instrument's use, are the means by which these relations of numbers are obtained. All measuring instruments are subject to varying degrees of instrument error and measurement uncertainty. These instruments may range from simple objects such as rulers and stopwatches to electron microscopes and particle accelerators. Virtual instrumentation is widely used in the development of modern measuring instruments. Time In the past, a common time measuring instrument was the sundial. Today, the usual measuring instrument ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tanya Leise
Tanya L. Leise was an American biomathematician specializing in the mathematical modeling of circadian rhythms and related phenomena such as jet lag and hibernation. She was a professor of mathematics at Amherst College. Education and career Leise is a 1993 graduate of Stanford University. She went to Texas A&M University for graduate study, completing a Ph.D. there in 1998. Her dissertation, ''An Analog to the Dirichlet-to-Nuemann Map and Its Application to Dynamic Elastic Fracture'', was supervised by Jay R. Walton. After working as a visiting lecturer at Indiana University, she joined the faculty of the Rose–Hulman Institute of Technology in 1999. She moved to Amherst as a visiting assistant professor in 2004, obtained a regular-rank faculty position in 2007, and was promoted to full professor in 2018. Service Leise was co-chair of the Joint Committee on Women in the Mathematical Sciences, sponsored by a group of seven major mathematical societies, from 2011 to 2014. She h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shoelace Formula
The shoelace formula, shoelace algorithm, or shoelace method (also known as Gauss's area formula and the surveyor's formula) is a mathematical algorithm to determine the area of a simple polygon whose vertices are described by their Cartesian coordinates in the plane. It is called the shoelace formula because of the constant cross-multiplying for the coordinates making up the polygon, like threading shoelaces. It has applications in surveying and forestry,Hans Pretzsch, Forest Dynamics, Growth and Yield: From Measurement to Model', Springer, 2009, , p. 232. among other areas. The formula was described by Albrecht Ludwig Friedrich Meister (1724–1788) in 1769 and is based on the trapezoid formula which was described by Carl Friedrich Gauss and C.G.J. Jacobi. The triangle form of the area formula can be considered to be a special case of Green's theorem. The area formula can also be applied to self-overlapping polygons since the meaning of area is still clear even though self- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Integraph
An Integraph is a mechanical analog computing device for plotting the integral of a graphically defined function. History Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis first described the fundamental principal of a mechanical integraph in 1836 in the ''Journal de Mathématiques Pures et Appliquées''. A full description of an integraph was published independently around 1880 by both British physicist Sir Charles Vernon Boys and Bruno Abdank-Abakanowicz, a Polish-Lithuanian mathematician/electrical engineer. Boys described a design for an integraph in 1881 in the ''Philosophical Magazine''. Abakanowicz developed a practical working prototype in 1878, with improved versions of the prototype being manufactured by firms such as Coradi in Zürich, Switzerland. Customized and further improved versions of Abakanowicz's design were manufactured until well after 1900, with these later modifications being made by Abakanowicz in collaboration M. D. Napoli, the "principal inspector of the railroad Chemin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematical Instrument
A mathematical instrument is a tool or device used in the study or practice of mathematics. In geometry, construction of various proofs was done using only a compass (drafting), compass and straightedge; arguments in these proofs relied only on idealized properties of these instruments and literal construction was regarded as only an approximation. In applied mathematics, mathematical instruments were used for measuring angles and distances, in astronomy, navigation, surveying and in the measurement of time.Gerard L'Estrange Turner ''Scientific Instruments, 1500-1900: An Introduction'' ( University of California Press, 1998) page 8 Overview Instruments such as the astrolabe, the Quadrant (instrument), quadrant, and others were used to measure and accurately record the relative positions and movements of planets and other celestial objects. The sextant and other related instruments were essential for navigation at sea. Most instruments are used within the field of geometry, incl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dot Planimeter
A dot planimeter is a device used in planimetrics for estimating the area of a shape, consisting of a transparent sheet containing a square grid of dots. To estimate the area of a shape, the sheet is overlaid on the shape and the dots within the shape are counted. The estimate of area is the number of dots counted multiplied by the area of a single grid square. In some variations, dots that land on or near the boundary of the shape are counted as half of a unit. The dots may also be grouped into larger square groups by lines drawn onto the transparency, allowing groups that are entirely within the shape to be added to the count rather than requiring their dots to be counted one by one. The estimation of area by means of a dot grid has also been called the dot grid method or (particularly when the alignment of the grid with the shape is random) systematic sampling. Perhaps because of its simplicity, it has been repeatedly reinvented. Application In forestry, cartography, and geogr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parametric Equation
In mathematics, a parametric equation defines a group of quantities as functions of one or more independent variables called parameters. Parametric equations are commonly used to express the coordinates of the points that make up a geometric object such as a curve or surface, in which case the equations are collectively called a parametric representation or parameterization (alternatively spelled as parametrisation) of the object. For example, the equations :\begin x &= \cos t \\ y &= \sin t \end form a parametric representation of the unit circle, where ''t'' is the parameter: A point (''x'', ''y'') is on the unit circle if and only if there is a value of ''t'' such that these two equations generate that point. Sometimes the parametric equations for the individual scalar output variables are combined into a single parametric equation in vectors: :(x, y)=(\cos t, \sin t). Parametric representations are generally nonunique (see the "Examples in two dimensions" section belo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Area
Area is the quantity that expresses the extent of a region on the plane or on a curved surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape A shape or figure is a graphics, graphical representation of an object or its external boundary, outline, or external Surface (mathematics), surface, as opposed to other properties such as color, Surface texture, texture, or material type. A pl ... or planar lamina, while ''surface area'' refers to the area of an open surface or the boundary (mathematics), boundary of a solid geometry, three-dimensional object. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat. It is the two-dimensional analogue of the length of a plane curve, curve (a one-dimensional concept) or the volume of a solid (a three-dimensional concept). The area of a shape can be measured by com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
