Straight Line and its construction
From Math Images
| Line 332: | Line 332: | ||
*)http://kmoddl.library.cornell.edu/tutorials/04/ | *)http://kmoddl.library.cornell.edu/tutorials/04/ | ||
*)http://www.howround.com/ | *)http://www.howround.com/ | ||
| - | |References=How to | + | |References= |
| - | + | Bryant, John, & Sangwin, Christopher. (2008). How Round is your circle?. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton Univ Pr. (Bryant, & Sangwin, 2008) | |
| - | + | Cundy, H.Martyn, & Rollett, A.P. (1961). Mathematical models. Clarendon, Oxford : Oxford University Press.(Cundy, & Rollett, 1961) | |
| + | Henderson, David. (2001). Experiencing geometry. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice hall. (Henderson, 2001) | ||
| + | Kempe, A. B. (1877). How to Draw a straight line; a lecture on linkage. London: Macmillan and Co.. (Kempe, 1877) | ||
| + | Taimina, D. (n.d.). How to Draw a Straight Line. Retrieved from The Kinematic Models for Design Digital Library: http://kmoddl.library.cornell.edu/tutorials/04/ (Taimina) | ||
| + | Ferguson, Eugene S. (1962). Kinematics of mechanisms from the time of watt. United States National Museum Bulletin, (228), 185-230. (Ferguson, 1962) | ||
|ToDo=I need to change the size of the main picture and maybe some more theoretical description what a straight line here. | |ToDo=I need to change the size of the main picture and maybe some more theoretical description what a straight line here. | ||
|InProgress=Yes | |InProgress=Yes | ||
}} | }} | ||
Revision as of 14:34, 9 July 2010
| How to draw a straight line without a straight edge | ||
|---|---|---|
| Today, we simply define a line as a one-dimensional object that extents to infinity in both directions and it is straight, i.e. no wiggles along its length. But what is straightness? It is a hard question because we have the picture in our head and the answer right there under our breath but we simply cannot articulate it.
| |
| Image 1 | Image 2 |
The Quest to Draw a Straight Line
The Practical Need
James Watt's breakthrough
James Watt found a mechanism that converted the linear motion of pistons in the cylinder to the semi circular motion of the beam (or the circular motion of the flywheel) and vice versa. In 1784, he invented a three member linkage that solved the linear motion to circular problem practically as illustrated by the animation below. In its simplest form, there are two radius arms that have the same lengths and a connecting arm with midpoint P. Point P moves in a straight line. However, this linkage only produced approximate straight line (a stretched figure 8 actually) as shown in Image 7, much to the chagrin of the mathematicians who were after absolute straight lines. There is a more general form of the Watt's linkage that the two radius arms having different lengths like shown in Image 6. To make sure that Point P still move in the stretched figure 8, it has to be positioned such that it adheres to the ratio .
| |
| Image 6 | Image 7 |
The Motion of Point P
We intend to described the path of
so that we could show it does not move in a straight line (which is obvious in the animation) and more importantly to pinpoint the position of
using certain parameter we know such as the angle of rotation or one coordinate of point
. This is awfully crucial in engineering as engineers would like to know that there are no two parts of the machine will collide with each other throughout the motion. In addition, you can use the parametrization to create your own animation like that in Image 7.
Algebraic Description
Parametric Description
The First Planar Straight Line Linkage - Peaucellier-Lipkin Linkage
| Image 13 | Mathematicians and engineers had being searching for almost a century to find the solution to the straight line linkage but all had failed until 1864, a French army officer Charles Nicolas Peaucellier came up with his inversor linkage. Interestingly, he did not publish his findings and proof until 1873, when Lipmann I. Lipkin, a student from University of St. Petersburg, demonstrated the same working model at the World Exhibition in Vienna. Peaucellier acknowledged Lipkin's independent findings with the publication of the details of his discovery in 1864 and the mathematical proof.
|
| Image 14 | |
Let's turn to a skeleton drawing of the Peaucellier-Lipkin linkage in Image 14. It is constructed in such a way that and . Furthermore, all the bars are free to rotate at every joint and point is a fixed pivot. Due to the symmetrical construction of the linkage, it goes without proof that points , and lie in a straight line. Construct lines and and they meet at point .
Since shape
Now,
Therefore,
Let's take a moment to look at the relation | |
| Image 15 | |
Refer to Image 15. Let's fix the path of point such that it traces out a circle that has point on it. is the the extra link pivoted to the fixed point with . Construct line that cuts the circle at point . In addition, construct line such that .
Since,
and Therefore | |
Inversive Geometry in Peaucellier-Lipkin Linkage
As a matter of fact, the first part of the proof given above is already sufficient. Due to inversive geometry, once we have shown that points
,
and
are collinear and that
is of constant value. Points
and
are inversive pairs with
as inversive center. Therefore, once
moves in a circle that contains
, then
will move in a straight line and vice versa. ∎ See Inversion for more detail.
Peaucellier-Lipkin Linkage in Action
| Image 16 |
The new linkage caused considerable excitement in London. Mr. Prim, "engineer to the House", utilized the new compact form invented by H.Hart to fit his new blowing engine which proved to be "exceptionally quiet in their operation." In this compact form, , and . Point and are fixed pivots. In Image 16. F is the inversive center and points , and are collinear and is of constant value. Mr. Prim's blowing engine used for ventilating the House of Commons, 1877. The crosshead of the reciprocating air pump is guided by a Peaucellier linkage shown in Image 17. The slate-lined air cylinders had rubber-flap inlet and exhaust valves and a piston whose periphery was formed by two rows of brush bristles. Prim's machine was driven by a steam engine.
|
| Image 17 |
Hart's Linkage
After Peaucellier-Lipkin Linkage was introduced to England in 1874, Mr. Hart of Woolwich devised a new linkage that contained only four links which is the blue part as shown in Image 18. Point is the inversion center with and collinear and constant. When point is constrained to move in a circle that passes through point , then point will trace out a straight line. See below for proof.
|
| Image 18 |
We know that
As a result, Draw line Consequently, points Construct rectangle
For We then have Further, due to We have |
Other Straight Line Mechanism
| Image 19 | Image 20 | Image 21 |
There are many other mechanisms that create straight line. I will only introduce one of them here. Refer to Image 19. Consider two circles and with radius having the relation . We roll inside without slipping as show in Image 20. Then the arch lengths . Voila! and point has to be on the line joining the original points and ! The same argument goes for point . As a result, point moves in the horizontal line and point moves in the vertical line. In 1801, James White patented his mechanism using this rolling motion. It is shown in Image 21.
| ||
| Image 22 | ||
Interestingly, if you attach a rod of fixed length to point and and the end of the rod will trace out an ellipse as seen in Image 22. Why? Consider the coordinates of in terms of , and . Point will have the coordinates . Now, whenever we see and together, we want to square them. Hence, and . Well, they are not so pretty yet. So we make them pretty by dividing by and by , obtaining and . Voila again! and this is exactly the algebraic formula for an ellipse.
| ||
Conclusion---The Take Home Message
We should not take the conception of straight line for granted and there are many interesting, and important, issues surrounding the concepts of straight line. A serious exploration of its properties and constructions will not only give you a glimpse of geometry's all encompassing reach into science, engineering and our lives, but also make you question many of the assumptions you have about geometry. Hopefully, you will start questioning the flatness of a plane, roundness of a circle and the nature of a point. This was how real science and amazing discoveries were made and this is how you should learn and appreciate them.
Teaching Materials
- There are currently no teaching materials for this page. Add teaching materials.
About the Creator of this Image
KMODDL is a collection of mechanical models and related resources for teaching the principles of kinematics--the geometry of pure motion. The core of KMODDL is the Reuleaux Collection of Mechanisms and Machines, an important collection of 19th-century machine elements held by Cornell's Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
Related Links
Additional Resources
- )http://kmoddl.library.cornell.edu/model.php?m=244
- )http://dlxs2.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=math;cc=math;view=toc;subview=short;idno=Kemp009
- )http://kmoddl.library.cornell.edu/tutorials/04/
- )http://www.howround.com/
References
Bryant, John, & Sangwin, Christopher. (2008). How Round is your circle?. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton Univ Pr. (Bryant, & Sangwin, 2008) Cundy, H.Martyn, & Rollett, A.P. (1961). Mathematical models. Clarendon, Oxford : Oxford University Press.(Cundy, & Rollett, 1961) Henderson, David. (2001). Experiencing geometry. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice hall. (Henderson, 2001) Kempe, A. B. (1877). How to Draw a straight line; a lecture on linkage. London: Macmillan and Co.. (Kempe, 1877) Taimina, D. (n.d.). How to Draw a Straight Line. Retrieved from The Kinematic Models for Design Digital Library: http://kmoddl.library.cornell.edu/tutorials/04/ (Taimina) Ferguson, Eugene S. (1962). Kinematics of mechanisms from the time of watt. United States National Museum Bulletin, (228), 185-230. (Ferguson, 1962)
Future Directions for this Page
I need to change the size of the main picture and maybe some more theoretical description what a straight line here.
Leave a message on the discussion page by clicking the 'discussion' tab at the top of this image page.
In Euclid's book Elements, he defined a straight line as "lying evenly between its extreme points" and it has "breadthless width." The definition is pretty useless. What does he mean if he says "lying evenly"? It tells us nothing about how to describe or construct a straight line. So what is a straightness anyway? There are a few good answers. For instance, in the Cartesian Coordinates, the graph of
is a straight line. In addition, the shortest distance between two points on a flat plane is a straight line, a definition we are most familiar with. However, it is important to realize that the definitions of being "shortest" and "straight" will change when you are no longer on flat plane. For example, the shortest distance between two points on a sphere is the the "great circle", a section of a sphere that contains a diameter of the sphere, and great circle is straight on the spherical surface.
For more properties on staight line, you refer to the book Experience Geometry by zzz.
Categories: Math Images In Progress | Geometry | Cornell University Libraries and the Cornell College of Engineering


.

and
. Hence let the coordinates of UNIQ16f6fd00b [...]
, coordinates of
be
. We also know the length of the bar. Let
.
, then
. Since
. Then the coordinates of
.



, i.e.
. Next, we substitute
, i.e.
. Since
, we have expressions of
and
, then
and
which will yield

and
. Of course, it will be a messy one but we could definitely use Mathematica to do the maths.
in conformation of most param [...]
. Then using cosine formula, we have
and
as
,
and
being the coordinates of point
is parametrized in term of
and
is the original three member linkage with
and point
. A is the pivot of the beam fixed on the engine frame while D is also fixed. However, Watt modified it by adding a parallelogram
to it and connecting point
to the piston rod. We now know that point


and
. Furthermore, all the bars are free to rotate at every joint and point
and
and they meet at point
.
is a rhombus
and
. Since the length
and
are of constant length, then the product
is the the extra link pivoted to the fixed point
with
. Construct line
that cuts the circle at point
. In addition, construct line
such that
.
,
constant, i.e. the length of
(or the x-coordinate of
,
and
. Point
and
is of constant value. Mr. Prim's blowing engine used for ventilating the House of Commons, 1877. The crosshead of the reciprocating air pump is guided by a Peaucellier linkage shown in Image 17. The slate-lined air cylinders had rubber-flap inlet and exhaust valves and a piston whose periphery was formed by two rows of brush bristles. Prim's machine was driven by a steam engine.

and
constant. When point
, intersecting
at point
are collinear
,
.
where
and
with radius having the relation
. We roll
. Voila!
and point
will trace out an ellipse as seen in Image 22. Why? Consider the coordinates of
and
. Point
. Now, whenever we see
and
together, we want to square them. Hence,
and
. Well, they are not so pretty yet. So we make them pretty by dividing
by
and
by
, obtaining
and
. Voila again!
and this is exactly the algebraic formula for an ellipse.


