machine-cost
Every curve in the catalogue, compiled and counted
The bar count is not a formula: it is the number of bar constraints the compiled mechanism actually carries, asked of the object rather than predicted. A line costs five bars and a quintic four hundred and thirteen, which is the field's central number — exactness is paid for in size. The all-revolute column replaces the one prismatic pair that closes the chain with a Peaucellier cell, which costs seven bars whatever the curve, so it is more than half the machine on a line and a rounding error on a quintic. The last column is the polynomial evaluated at the traced point, worst over each machine's working arc.
Where it is used
- Every curve is a sum of cosines The curve as an equation
- A circle costs one term The curve as an equation
- Four bars that add two angles The curve as an equation
- A parallelogram carries an angle, and only so far The curve as an equation
- Doubling is cheaper than adding The curve as an equation
- Five bars for a line, four hundred for a quintic The curve as an equation
- A bar between two midpoints The curve as an equation
- One freedom and four hundred links What can move
- Exact costs more than close The curve as an equation
- Prescribing a curve rather than points The problem backwards
- What universality is worth The curve as an equation
- A machine with one dyad in it The chain before the lengths
- Six things a compiled linkage is not Drawn wrongly
- The price is on the equation The curve as an equation
- Exactness a micron destroys As built
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