OneStone® Pebbles Curve Families
The Curve Families Pebble is designed to illustrate one of the first concepts encountered
when studying functions - families of functions. Selecting a constant in the expression
connects it to the slider control, allowing the user to vary the expression and see
the results in real time (see the Using Pebbles
page for complete instructions).
This Pebble accepts all the standard math
operators plus the variables X, Y, R and/or Theta, although only
expressions in the form of F(X) or F(Y) are drawn in the 2D display. Functions are
graphed according to the following rules:
- Functions in which X is the only independent variable are drawn in the 2D Graph
as the curve Y = F(X).
- Functions in which Y is the only independent variable are drawn in the 2D Graph
as X = F(Y).
- Functions of X, Y, R, and/or Theta are drawn in 3D as the surface Z = F(X, Y, R
and/or Theta).
(A 'Contour Diagrams' Pebble is now available, which provides a 2D visualization for more
complex functions. Windows users can also find this capability in
OneStone Math for Windows.)
Click the 'Launch...' link below to start the Curve Families Pebble. The process
of installing and running a Pebble for the first time is explained on the
Installing Pebbles page. Running one after the first time
is quicker: the JOGL package doesn't have to be downloaded, plus something other
than the generic 'Starting Java' image is displayed during start-up.
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