Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!sun-barr!newstop!sun!pepper!cmcmanis From: cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Math Function Viewing Programs Message-ID: <125231@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> Date: 25 Sep 89 19:02:11 GMT References: <3029*David.Slonosky@QueensU.CA> Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM Reply-To: cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis) Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View Lines: 27 I've used Doug's Math Aquarium quite a bit and find it extremely helpful in visualizing various functions. The interface is different, but quite efficient when you get used to it. And it can plot some amazingly baroque graphs because of it's "logical" functions. You can make up functions which have several parts that are valid for different pieces of the graph, and because you can visualize things in two or three dimensions with contours or plots it can show you relationships that don't appear spacially. All neat stuff. The function parser is very good to so you can type in complex formulas without having to use a twisted language, they are almost like BASIC statements. (But with C constructs) An example function (I call it the donut) would be : A: (FNB >1 && FNB < 2) ? SIN(FNB-1) * 2 : 0 B: SQR(X**2+Y**2) /* Distance from 0,0 */ Now the program plots the value of A, and the logical expression lets A take on two values : 0 if SQRT(X**2 + Y**2) is less than 1 or greater than 2, And sin(FNB-1)*2 if the value is between 1 and 2. This makes a donut shape when plotted in three dimensions (well actually a half donut because the bottom isn't there). This program is also capable of dealing with imaginary numbers and can plot Mandelbrot and Julia sets as well. All in all it is quite powerful and I wish I had had something like it in college. --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you. "If I were driving a Macintosh, I'd have to stop before I could turn the wheel."