Background
The mathematics of “linkages” resembles classical geometry but incorporates motion. While imagined movement is commonly used to aid reasoning in geometry, linkagesare explicitly understood as jointed assemblies of rigid objects, and what’s studiedistheir movement relative to each other. Such theory, perfectly suited to application during the Industrial Revolution, begantooccupy mathematicians in the 19th century, soon after the development of modernprecision machining. See here:
Proliferation of mechanical computing devices such as we already discussed was adirect consequence:
https://www.youtube.com/user/MechanicalComputing
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta
Here are all the linkage articles:
https://makezine.com/article/maker-news/math-monday-linkages-an-introduction/
https://makezine.com/article/maker-news/math-monday-linkages-four-bars-one-freedom/
https://makezine.com/article/craft/math-monday-linkages-part-3-four-bars-two-or-three-positions/
https://makezine.com/article/maker-news/math-monday-part-4-four-bars-four-positions
https://makezine.com/article/science/math-monday-linkages-four-bars-more-positions/
https://makezine.com/article/craft/math-monday-linkages-biomimicry
https://makezine.com/article/science/math-monday-linkages-the-world-b-x
https://makezine.com/article/science/math-monday-linkages-lets-get-this-straight/
https://makezine.com/article/science/math-monday-linkages-the-straight-dope/
Assignment
(1) Study the first two articles above, and browse the remainder. Download the “kit”
from the first article, paying attention to the general instructions/advice that followthePDF link. (2) Build a linkage of 4 or more bars. You can follow instructions fromone of thearticles, or invent your own. Explore its movements for a while, then make and
submit a short video demonstrating its full range of motion.
