SPLINE is a peculiar word that comes from East Anglian dialect, ultimately related to an early loan from Dutch, related to "splinter". The word spline entered mathematical practice during the original construction of the railway system in England. It was found by trial and error that if a curve was too sharp, the "puffing Billy" left the rails. Once a good curvature had been found for a particular stretch of rail, a wooden shape was made that conformed to the scale of the topographical railway map and which could be used for drawing in the desired curvature. Ultimately, a mathematical expression was constructed to do the work rather than use a set of templates. It is therefore not necessary, nor even desirable, to attempt to translate the word SPLINE into other tongues.
Richard A. Reyment Citerar morphmet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > I have been teaching morphometrics for some time in portuguese and have given up trying to translate these words. As Diego said, we usually explain the difference and use the english word form in italics. There are a number of words that are not translated here, for example, the brazilian mathematicians do not translate the word splines. I guess we have not been thinking about it very much because we do not write so much in portuguese anymore. > Leandro > -- > ################################################################## > Leandro R. Monteiro > Laboratorio de Ciencias Ambientais - CBB > Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense > Alberto Lamego, 2000, Campos dos Goytacazes, RJ, > cep 28013-600, Brasil > E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Tel: (55-22) 27261471 > FAX: (55-22) 27261472 > home page: http://www.uenf.br/index.html/lca > ################################################################## > > > > > -- > Replies will be sent to the list. > For more information visit http://www.morphometrics.org > -- Replies will be sent to the list. For more information visit http://www.morphometrics.org
