The Function Box Idea
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The Function Box Idea |
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"Bug on a band" |
My dad, Clifford Long, dreamed up a function box, a machine for
dynamically producing surfaces of functions of two variables.
He was big on what are now known as manipulatives: for example, he built a large wooden hyperbolic paraboloid to use in multivariate class, because he knew that lots of students have trouble visualizing surfaces (e.g. those projected onto a screen). But this was an extremely time-consuming and energy-intensive process: he wanted something computer-controlled, that would allow him to dynamically produce such surfaces. |
"Infinity": Spanning surface for the trefoil knot, in alabaster |
But how does one create a function box?