Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"We follow the scientists around and look over their shoulders."
- Larry Niven
 |
| Geometric Modeling | ||
| The first recorded use of geometric figures to directly represent, or model, living beings. |
Certainly, Swift was not the first to think about living beings in geometric terms; Renaissance artists probably claim the prize there. But to actually build up an image of a person, say, with geometric figures alone?
| The knowledge I had in mathematics, gave me great assistance in acquiring their phraseology, which depended much upon that science, and music; and in the latter I was not unskilled. Their ideas are perpetually conversant in lines and figures. If they would, for example, praise the beauty of a woman, or any other animal, they describe it by rhombs, circles, parallelograms, ellipses, and other geometrical terms, or by words of art drawn from music, needless here to repeat. I observed in the king’s kitchen all sorts of mathematical and musical instruments, after the figures of which they cut up the joints that were served to his majesty’s table. |
| From Gulliver's Travels,
by Jonathan Swift. Published by Unknown in 1726 Additional resources -
|
If you are interested in the topic, you might want to check out the Online Geometric Modeling Notes, courtesy of our friends at UC Davis. There, you will learn about NURBS (non-uniform rational b-splines) and more.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Gulliver's Travels
More Ideas
and Technology by Jonathan Swift
Tech news articles related to Gulliver's Travels
Tech news articles related to works by Jonathan Swift
| Google Now Expects Chips To Design Themselves |
| Neuromorphic Computing Hardare |
| Finally! Microsoft Surface Neo And Surface Duo Implement Excellent Courier Idea |
| Tap Strap 2 Now With Air Mouse |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'Immediately an enormous apparatus fell on to her out of the ceiling...'
'... filling their great tanks with the finely divided dust which the ionic rockets would spit out in electrified jets.'
'In the napcap a client became an instant yoga master...'
'Employees above a certain level were implanted with advanced microprocessors...'
'Jeremiah is a sports-model to begin with and that kind is awfully hot-tempered.'
'If anything can glue the asteroids back into the planet they once were, magnology will do it.'
A cooling unit had to be strapped to every commuter's back, by law.
'...lined with durite, that strange close-packed laboratory product.'
'He was still roaring when the knife missile flicked past him...'
