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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

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Journal

Undergraduate Journal of Mathematical Modeling: One + Two

Newton’s Method

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Optimization Of A Pressure-Treating Process, Josean Velez Jan 2011

Optimization Of A Pressure-Treating Process, Josean Velez

Undergraduate Journal of Mathematical Modeling: One + Two

A company that pressure-treats wood wants to minimize its annual cost without using more than 250 days of operation per year. In addition, they want to find the corresponding value of time, batches and cost for each category. We develop an expression in terms of boards per batch to model the total cost of the treatment process. We then take the derivative and use Newton's Method to find the number of boards per batch that minimizes total cost.


Length Of A Hanging Cable, Eric Costello Jan 2011

Length Of A Hanging Cable, Eric Costello

Undergraduate Journal of Mathematical Modeling: One + Two

The shape of a cable hanging under its own weight and uniform horizontal tension between two power poles is a catenary. The catenary is a curve which has an equation defined by a hyperbolic cosine function and a scaling factor. The scaling factor for power cables hanging under their own weight is equal to the horizontal tension on the cable divided by the weight of the cable. Both of these values are unknown for this problem. Newton's method was used to approximate the scaling factor and the arc length function to determine the length of the cable. A script was …


Pollination Of A Canary Tree Flower, Abbie O'Hern Weeks Jan 2010

Pollination Of A Canary Tree Flower, Abbie O'Hern Weeks

Undergraduate Journal of Mathematical Modeling: One + Two

Pollination is an essential part of the life cycle of flowering plants. We perform an experiment to determine how long a canary tree flower is accessible to pollinating insects so that fertilization can take place. We conducted an observational study where we measured the size of the same flower and charted its growth each day. With the observational data we constructed a scatter plot and from the graph we fit a cubic function to the data. We conclude that in the lifespan of a canary tree flower, pollination begins at 5 1/2 days and ends approximately 9 days later.