For the Museum of Mathematics I have been remiss. I wrote an entire column on arrangements of great circles without once mentioning Buckminster Fuller. His original designs for domes involved bracing them solely with arcs of great circles. Since, on the surface of a sphere a great circle is the shortest path, or geodesic, between […]
In the first of a several posts on math-making using the lowly business card, we look at Jeanine Mosely’s Business Card Menger Sponge.
We’re taking a break this week from linkages to follow up on the Grocery Geometry column from a few months ago. More possibilities for mixing food and math crop up constantly, so it’s time to share a couple.
In the second column in this series, we witnessed the incredible complexity that a simple four-bar linkage can create: it will, in general, draw a path described by a sixth-degree polynomial in x and y. But what about simpler functions, maybe much simpler? Can a linkage draw a linear path in x and y?
Math Monday continues its multi-week adventure into the wonderful world of linkages, this time looking at pantograph machines, built from linkages.
Today, we’re going to look at some linkages designed to mimic the walking behavior of living creatures. They are designed to lift a strut up off the ground, plant it farther ahead, and pull it back (which is the power stroke that actually moves an object — or animal — forward.) One inventive person in this area is Joe Klann…
Written by Glen Whitney for the Museum of Mathematics In this column, we will wrap up our close look at four-bar linkages. See the Linkages series introduction for the MoMath Linkage Kit, an introduction, and general instructions. Given how difficult it was to construct a linkage that caused one bar to take on four desired […]
