Friday, February 13, 2009

Graphing Hearts

A conversation of the TI-Nspire Google Group occurred today about graphing implicit functions. The expression entered for the graph to the left demonstrates another reason to "go CAS." With the TI-Nspire CAS you can easily graph implicit relations, especially conics. CAS has its advantages. (When using this 'zeros method', remember the ",y)" at the end.)

I was impressed with using the zeros feature to graph this. On my TI-Nspire Calculus website I have a file where hearts are graphed from functions with radicals and inverse trig functions. There are also 2 kinds of polar hearts, a parametric, and an implicit heart graph plotted using a different method than the lovely 'zeros method' shown on the left. I made a pdf of the heart graphs for the enjoyment of all.
(Update: See what graphing a heart in 3D looks like on the 3.0 operating system of the TI-Nspire CX. This works on the numeric or CAS Nspire.)


Romans 13:8 "Let no debt remain outstanding,
except the continuing debt to
love one another,
for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law."