The initial applet window looks like:
Once the scrollbars for the coefficients have been adjusted:
When the derivative option is selected:
These modules are provided by Cambridge Modeling Corporation (CMC) for the personal and non-profit use of individual instructors and their students and cannot be distributed to third parties without prior written permission by CMC. The module is copyright Cambridge Modeling Corporation 1999. No warranty explicit or implicit pertains to the use of this module in whole or in part. Comments and suggestions regarding this or other CMC modules can be directed to the contact whose name and email are listed on the web site from which you obtained this document.
The modules have been tested under Microsoft's Explorer 4.0 and Netscape Communicator 4.5 for Windows 95 and NT. Versions of the browsers prior to July 1998 are not supported. Older versions of Explorer may work while versions of Netscape's Communicator will likely not. The uncompressed applets are approximately 1 megabyte in size and should present no difficulty if being used on a local network or high-speed link. The module execution should be adequate on systems having at least 133 MHZ clock speeds and sufficient memory for running browsers, word processing applications, and spreadsheets (e.g., >= 48 megs). At the time of writing, the Explorer browser is the recommended platform.
This module allows you to explore the structure of a quadratic equation. Each coefficient and term is associated with a scroll bar and the contribution of each term can be visualized and experimented with.
There are three basic components to this module, the set of three scrollbars associated with the coefficients, the math window showing the equation, and the chart.
When the module is started, the coefficients are zero and the constant is zero as well. This results in a graph of Y which is zero. The middle setting of the scrollbars match this state. The derivative is not shown.
The scrollbars allow you to set a coefficient to a negative or positive setting. As you manipulate the scrollbars, the math will change and the chart refreshed.
The one option in this module is the display of the derivative. If the derivative option is selected, the two equations are displayed and the derivative is graphed as a black-dashed line.
There are no keyboard entries or options in this module.