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Re: parabolic trough edge's length
From: williamsdavid65@gmail.com (dow)
Someone came to my web site looking for a way to calculate the length of
a parabolic trough edge. On the off-chance that it was someone who reads
this group, I've written an MS-DOS program to do that job and am willing
to email a copy of the executable to anyone wanting it.
It provides as close an approximation as anyone is likely to want, and
it gives the length of y = Ax^2 + Bx + C between a pair of x limits to a
user-specified error threshold (on my machine an error threshold of zero
causes it to run for a ghastly 13 seconds).
It isn't beautiful, but the price is right. :)
--
Morris Dovey
13 seconds ghastly?!
Remember that thing I did a few months ago, calculating the dimensions
of a paraboloidal reflector that has its focus coincident with its
centre of mass? I made the program do the calculation to a precision
of ten significant digits (Why? Because I wanted to see if I could.)
On the ancient machine I used, the program took nearly ten *minutes*
to run.
Good programs give you time to go and make coffee. Really good
programs let you go see a movie. Excellent programs let you take a
vacation.
dow
