Abstract
IN NATURE (vol. xx. p. 103) there appears an abstract of a paper by Prof. E. W. Blake on a machine for drawing compound harmonic curves. Prof. Blake is doubtless not aware that this machine is based on a plan proposed by Prof. Perry and myself in our paper on “the music of colour and visible motion,” read before the Physical Society, November 23, 1878. In that paper, after the description of our own motion-compounder, will be found the following:—“But it is possible that in our new machine we shall adopt a totally different plan, and one which we think is new. If the two extremities of a long rigid rod have parallel motions perpendicular to the rod, the middle of the rod has a motion equal to half the sum of the extremities. Thus the parallel motions of 2, 4, or 2n points may be compounded. Similarly for 3 points, one-third of the sum of parallel motions is obtained from the centre of a rigid triangular piece of which the points are the corners; so that by bars and frames of simple construction it is easy to get the sum of the parallel motions of any number of pieces.”
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AYRTON, W. A Machine for Drawing Compound Harmonic Curves. Nature 20, 145 (1879). https://doi.org/10.1038/020145a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/020145a0
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