Thread: Higher Mathmatics !!! about the Razor angle...

R, RRR its pirate approved



Ye olde GNUpirate



Charlie

Ben325e is on the right track. Basically a straight razor is 2 right triangles layed back-to-back. Simple enough to use a formula in excel to calculate the angle. I've done this before to use in the regrind shop to calculate the width on a form tool given the angle and step height.

Interesting read about the different angles on razors. Call me crazy but I like this sort of info.

The biggest advantage to Excel is that everyone and their dog uses is, especially if they are not computer savvy. I can mail an excel sheet to virtually everyone and they will be able to open it.

This discussion reminds me of the time when my CS nerd brother wanted my computer illiterate mom to switch to using Lateg for creating documents

I am sure that there are much better alternatives to Excel, but for simple things and wide distribution of documents, I think it is still a winner.

Oh, don't get me wrong - Excel has its place. For something as straightforward as what is intended in the present case, Excel is fine I am sure.

However, Excel is proprietary software and not everyone has access to it, despite the seemingly ubiquitous nature of Microsoft and its related products. Moreover, if the need ever arose to acknowledge the fact that the collected data are but a sample of the wider population of razors, or the fact that such data are measured with error, Excel, IMO, will not be adequate. This is only my opinion as, being proprietary software, we, as mere users, are not privy to the inner machinations of the code, if there be such code available, suitable for these purposes.

And on the other issue raised, my mother uses LaTeX all the time. I taught her one Christmas holiday and she has never looked back.

James.

i just noticed this thread.

i used octave, which is the free software analogue to matlab (matlab stands for matrix laboratory).

and to get just the numbers from glen's post i used mouse selection, then copy and paste, awk and sed. My shell is bash, just because it's the default, but that's irrelevant.

this is all in the world of linux, but it'd have worked exactly the same if i were sitting in front of my mac instead.

here's the octave code i typed:

Code:

f=[<paste the output of awk which is two columns of the thickness and the width>];
a=2*asin(f(:,1)./(2*f(:,2)))*180/pi

the last *180/pi is converting from the standard SI units (radians) to degrees.

The awk and sed part was something like:

Code:

awk -F\: '{print $NF}'|sed 's/\///'

at which point I pasted the copy of the section from glen's post which was in my buffer and pressed control-d.

This is one of the most efficient ways to do it, and there are only a couple of things which could be optimized further. In fact I could've done the math in awk too, but I rarely do math in it, so I would have had to consult the man page, so it was easier and faster for me to use octave.

Originally Posted by Ben325e

This allows for w to remain constant no matter how many layers of tape are added, eliminating the need to 1.) remeasure the hypotenuse every time you add a layer of tape, and 2.) measure w (acutal razor width) initially, which could be difficult to do accurately.

Actually the change in the hypotenuse is a second order effect, so it's negligible, the errors of the actual measurement are much larger.
The stretching of the tape can change the thickness significantly, so it is important to take a measurement with the actual tape on.



In any case I can do any calculation in octave much faster than anybody can do it in excel (programming it is faster, the data entry is faster, and i'd speculate that the negligible amount of compute time is faster too). It's more portable than anything else too, as I can give you a simple ascii file and unless having to have to buy excell or download a free alternative that is compatible with your file, the octave program is downloadable for free and it much smaller than say open office.

but since it is so efficient most people find the interface a bit too spartan to what they are used.

Originally Posted by gugi

since it is so efficient most people find the interface a bit too spartan to what they are used.

doesn't that produce a less efficient result for those people who have trouble using it?

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

doesn't that produce a less efficient result for those people who have trouble using it?

yes, in the same way the cartridge razors are a lot more efficient for those who lack the skills to use something better.