-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 We are quoted in this month's issue of Focus, the Mathematical Association of America's newsletter, on page 5, for bringing a source for the term "spline".
PDF link here: http://www.maa.org/pubs/march07web.pdf
- --Avi
---- User:Avraham pub 1024D/785EA229 3/6/2007 Avi (Wikipedia-related Key) avi_wiki@yahoo.com Primary key fingerprint: D233 20E7 0697 C3BC 4445 7D45 CBA0 3F46 785E A229
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On 3/26/07, Avi avi_wiki@yahoo.com wrote:
We are quoted in this month's issue of Focus, the Mathematical Association of America's newsletter, on page 5, for bringing a source for the term "spline".
PDF link here: http://www.maa.org/pubs/march07web.pdf
Ahhhh... Darn it, and that article [[Spline (mathematics)]] sources it to a much more recent derivation than is correct (see [[Spline (device)]]), though it's sourced.
*bang head on the wall*
We've become a reliable source for a scientific publication. With info from a published reliable source. Which is wrong - it quotes the origin as recent (WW II aircraft building, as opposed to the correct shipbuilding origin in the middle ages, which [[Spline (device)]] alludes to but doesn't go far enough explaining). And moreso, our [[Spline (mathematics)]] article lifts several sentences worth of material from cited source (http://www.netlib.org/na-digest-html/98/v98n26.html#1) without direct reference, probably a copyvio.
*bang head on the wall again*
George Herbert wrote:
On 3/26/07, Avi avi_wiki@yahoo.com wrote:
We are quoted in this month's issue of Focus, the Mathematical Association of America's newsletter, on page 5, for bringing a source for the term "spline".
PDF link here: http://www.maa.org/pubs/march07web.pdf
Ahhhh... Darn it, and that article [[Spline (mathematics)]] sources it to a much more recent derivation than is correct (see [[Spline (device)]]), though it's sourced.
*bang head on the wall*
Yep, the work of scholarship is never done... :-)
But I think that's the real beauty of WP, that it's a giant scratchpad where we all collect notes on what the different sources are saying, especially those in specialized areas that haven't talked to anybody outside the specialty in decades. Even the lowly disambiguation pages are assemblages of multiple meanings that have never been put together before.
Stan
On 3/27/07, Avi avi_wiki@yahoo.com wrote:
We are quoted in this month's issue of Focus, the Mathematical Association of America's newsletter, on page 5, for bringing a source for the term "spline".
PDF link here: http://www.maa.org/pubs/march07web.pdf
I fear we at wikipedia, and consequently that MAA article as well has it wrong. I rather suspect that splines were used already by folks copying illustrated manuscripts way back int the day, well before aeronautics had significantly progressed beyond flapping wing mechanisms.
On 3/27/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/27/07, Avi avi_wiki@yahoo.com wrote:
We are quoted in this month's issue of Focus, the Mathematical Association of America's newsletter, on page 5, for bringing a source for the term "spline".
PDF link here: http://www.maa.org/pubs/march07web.pdf
I fear we at wikipedia, and consequently that MAA article as well has it wrong. I rather suspect that splines were used already by folks copying illustrated manuscripts way back int the day, well before aeronautics had significantly progressed beyond flapping wing mechanisms.
I haven't got any evidence of that, and think it unlikely; the actual wood used for classical splines, even small thin pieces, doesn't bend nearly tightly enough to curve around in illustrated manuscript sized drawings. Modern hand illustrators do it largely freehand, and I have never seen one use a spline.
On the other hand, I have in my library some of the very early professional publications in Naval Architecture, and they all reference using splines when they talk about designing and lofting, back into the late 1700s at least.
On 28/03/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On the other hand, I have in my library some of the very early professional publications in Naval Architecture, and they all reference using splines when they talk about designing and lofting, back into the late 1700s at least.
Quoth the OED:
Spline, n. [Orig. E. Anglian dial.: perh. for splind (cf. older Da. splind, NFris. splinj) and related to SPLINDER n.]
1. a. A long, narrow, and relatively thin piece or strip of wood, metal, etc.; a slat. 1756 S. WHITE Collat. Bee-Boxes (1759) 26, c. c. are two Splines of Deal to keep the Boards even and strengthen them.
"to spline" doesn't appear until the 1890s, and "spline curve" in maths not until 1946.