Hi all, The question of Frans Maes was not: "Give me a formula for the circumference of an ellipse." but "Give me a NON-mathematical, intuitively convincing explanation for the fact that there is no 'simple' formula for the circumference of an ellipse."
I think we are mostly taked up by a rational masculine approach of science so that we not even hear that a question is posed out of a intuitive feminine approach.. Regards. ============================= Willy Leenders Kloosterlaan 60 B 3500 Hasselt Belgium 50.893722 N 5.34986 E Tel. (00)(#)(0)11 72 04 47 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ============================= "Frans W. MAES" wrote: > Hi all, > > Just to relieve the recent boredom of this list, how about this one: > > As some of you may know, I have an analemmatic sundial in my > garden (story on my homepage). The person who did the actual > work had to know how much material (tiles, bricks etc.) he would > need. Then I found out that there is no 'simple' formula for the > circumference of an ellipse. (I also found out that this led to a lot of > interesting mathematics, called 'elliptic integrals'. I knew the term, > but never realized where it came from.) > > The formula for the area of a circle generalizes simply to the area of > an ellipse (pi x r x r -> pi x a x b ; a and b being half the major and > minor axes, resp.). What puzzles me since is, why the > circumference of a circle does NOT generalize simply (actually, not > at all) to an ellipse. > > My question thus is: does anyone of you happen to know of a NON- > mathematical, intuitively convincing explanation for the fact that > there is no 'simple' formula for the circumference of an ellipse? > > Regards, > Frans Maes > > ===================================== > Frans W. Maes > Peize, The Netherlands > 53.1 N, 6.5 E > www.biol.rug.nl/maes/ > =====================================
