| This was a very nicely done model of z=sin(sqrt(x2+y2))
done with tape over a carefully constructed wire frame. The colored
pins on the surface are from their measurement of the slope along the gradient
at a point. |
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| It's a dreamcatcher, and the central portion bears a very close (how
close was part of what they looked at) resemblance to the saddle point
of z=x2-y2. |
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| A truly impressive rendering of z=1/(cos(sqrt(x2+y2+4/3)))
in wood. The accuracy is excellent, and it's currently living on
my desk as a candy dish. |
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| This is the standard paraboloid z=x2+y2, but
actually more impressive than it looks. There's a sketeton inside
of cross-sectional slices parallel to the xz and yz planes that gives the
surface its shape. |
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| Another one that's actually more impressive than it looks, this one
was a carefully measured paper mache model of a speaker cone. |
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| It's a camel whose humps resemble the function z=4xy-x4-y4-1,
which came with a skiing mouse named Muffy and a complicated story about
falling from the precarious location balanced between the humps. |
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| A daring attempt at the surface z=ln(x2+y2+1),
which tends asymptotically downward around a circle of radius 1. |
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| Well, at least it deserves lots of credit for clever use of materials.
Cut-up milk jugs make a surface fairly closely resembling a formula I can
no longer recall. |
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| A very nice job of building a surface via its traces parallel to the
xz and xy planes. The surface itself was a simplified equation for
an ocean wave shortly before it breaks when approaching the shore. |
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| It's a bagel. |
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| An impressive engineering accomplishment, this is a model of the surface
z=xy/(x2+y2) around its discontinuity at (0,0).
The model makes clear how the limit is 1/2 as you approach along y=x, -1/2
as you approach along y=-x, 0 along x=0 or y=0, and so on. To get
the elasticity needed they used spandex, then had to erect a framework
sturdy enough to hold it in place. Unfortunately some of the pictures
came out a bit fuzzy when viewed at large scale. |
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| A very nice, and very small, model of the surface z=xsiny. Again
the pictures came out a little too blurry to really do it justice. |
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| The surface z=x2y2e(-x^2-y^2),
complete with coordinate planes, color coding of the octants, 2D images
from other perspectives, and pictures of penguins sliding down the gradients
(as penguins will). |
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