G. E. Shilov (1917–1975)

It would be hard to find a field of science or social life where graphs are not used. We have all often seen graphs, for example, of industrial growth or increase in labour productivity. Natural phenomena like daily or annual fluctuations of temperature or atmospheric pressure are also easier to describe by means of graphs. The plotting of graphs of that kind presents no difficulty, provided the appropriate tables have been compiled. But we shall be dealing here with graphs of a different kind, with graphs that must be plotted from given mathematical formulas. A need for scuh graphs often arises in various fields of knowledge. Thus, in analysing the theoretical course of some physical process, a scientist obtains a formula yielding some magnitude with which he is concerned, for example, the amount of product obtained relative to time. The graph plotted from this formula will provide a clear picture of the future process. Looking at it, the scientist may possibly introduce substantial changes into the scheme of his experiment in order to obtain better results.
In this booklet we shall consider some simple methods of plotting graphs from given formulas.… (mere)