Re: scaling laws

["John S. Denker" <jsd@AV8N.COM>]

On 10/10/2003 12:38 PM, Hugh Haskell wrote:
[lots of good stuff] ...
> mearuing the area by counting squares,
...

That's all good.

Let me just add that this affords another opportunity
to drive home the point that there's nothing special
about squares.  You can just as well measure the area
by counting triangles.

This comes as a shock to many students.

You may find it convenient to use triangular-ruled
graph paper:
  http://www.av8n.com/physics/triangles.pdf

Note that many practical applications divide the
plane into triangles and divide space into
tetrahedrons.  Examples include finite-element
modelling packages such as are used for fluid
dynamics, structural analysis, electromagnetic
engineering, et cetera.