Abstract
GRAPHICAL methods are used to a certain extent in the solution of engineering problems, although perhaps their employment is not so extended as their neatness and simplicity merit. In some cases, it is true, where the simplification is great and the application easy, they are used practically to the exclusion of other methods. But in other cases where a graphical treatment would effect almost as great a simplification the methods have never been very generally applied. The reason lies, we think, in the fact that it requires greater ingenuity to treat a problem graphically than analytically. Problems such as occur in practice, even though they may be complicated, can generally be hammered out by analytical means. A good mathematician, no doubt, will be able to find a short cut to the solution, but the engineer, whose ready stock of mathematical knowledge on which he can draw with ease amounts to little more than the algebra he earnt at school and an acquaintance with the principles of the calculus, will be able to work out the solution by dint of determined plodding. With graphical methods it is different. To begin with, the geometrical training which an English engineer receives at school is a hindrance rather than a help, so that when he comes to study graphical systems he finds himself in a region unknown to him and is obliged to disembarrass himself of the Euclidean notions acquired in his youth. We are afraid that the Englishman will never be quite happy in using geometrical methods until the groundwork of his knowledge is laid with some more suitable text-book than Euclid's Elements. In addition to this, with these methods each new problem requires somewhat different treatment; it is hard, and often impossible, to lay down very definitely the lines on which to proceed. The ingenuity which is consequently required can only be obtained, by any except the born mathematician, by the habitual use of the system.
Il Calcolo Grafico applicato alla Misura delle Volte.
Prof. Ernesto Breglia. 5th serie, vol. i. (Atti del Reale Istituto d'Incoraggiamento di Napoli, 1899.)
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Il Calcolo Grafico applicato alla Misura delle Volte . Nature 64, 27 (1901). https://doi.org/10.1038/064027a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/064027a0