Re: LOGO-L> Re: Total Turtle Trip

[Jeff <jeffr@mugc.cc.monash.edu.au>]

On Sun, 26 Oct 1997, Mike Doyle wrote:
> More interestingly, the Logo procedure is a description of the operation 
> of moving forward a distance then turning an amount. It is my 
> understanding that such process descriptions are new to mathematics, 
> arriving only with the computer. 
Hardly, tho' procedural mathematics has received more attention since 
computers...
> I cannot 
> see how a procedure the words of which describe the drawing of a polygon 
> may ever be considered to be a description of the process of drawing a 
> cirlce.
Then try the concept of the infinitesimal. "Drawing' hasn't really got 
anything to do with this, a circle is an idea...
The classic turtle gemetry procedure for an ellipse traces an 
epicycle...nothing to do with polygons at all.

Jeff Richardson
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