List of Physical Visualizations
and Related Artifacts
With tag “mathematical-functions”

1880 – Klein’s Mathematical Plaster Models

In the 19th century, mathematicians became interested in the question how mathematical functions look like. Felix Klein, a German mathematician, had several of such physical models in his lab in Göttingen, and popularized them in America when he brought a boatload to the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893. The photo above shows a model of a Clebsch surface from 1880, designed and presumably built by Adolf Weiler, Klein's grad student. It is […]

Added by Yvonne Jansen and Pierre Dragicevic, sent by Saiganesh Swaminathan. Category: Physical model. Tags: , ,
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1930 – Mathematical Functions Embodied in Ballistic Cams

These cams are solid models of bivariate and univariate mathematical functions plotted in cylindric coordinates (left and middle images) and polar coordinates (right image). They were not meant to be visually examined, but were used in mechanical analog computers for aiming battleship guns during WWII. They were also called computing cams. Mechanical fire control aids started to be developed in the 1900s and and were still in use in the late […]

Added by Pierre Dragicevic, sent by Emmanuelle Beauxis-Aussalet & Yvonne Jansen. Category: Physical model. Tags: , ,
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1968 – Charles Csuri’s Numeric Milling Sculpture

Csuri's wooden sculpture Numeric Milling is one of the few early computer sculptures created with a computer-driven milling machine… This work made use of the Bessel function to generate the surface. The computer program then generated a punched tape to represent the coordinate data. Included were instructions to a 3-axis, continuous path, numerically controlled milling machine. Sources:  Csuri Project: Plotter Drawing, 1966 – 1970: Numeric […]

Added by Matthew Lewis. Category: Enabling technology. Tags: , , , ,
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