Unknown-quantities Sentence Examples

The device known as the method of least squares, for reducing numerous equations of condition to the number of unknown quantities to be determined, had been adopted as a practically convenient rule by Gauss and Legendre; but Laplace first treated it as a problem in probabilities, and proved by an intricate and difficult course of reasoning that it was also the most advantageous, the mean of the probabilities of error in the determination of the elements being thereby reduced to a minimum.

None of them, in point of fact, has held its ground, and even his proposal to denote unknown quantities by the vowels A, E, I, 0, u, Y - the consonants B, c, &c., being reserved for general known quantities - has not been taken up. In this denotation he followed, perhaps, some older contemporaries, as Ramus, who designated the points in geometrical figures by vowels, making use of consonants, R, S, T, &c., only when these were exhausted.

On the other hand, Vieta was well skilled in most modern artifices, aiming at a simplification of equations by the substitution of new quantities having a certain connexion with the primitive unknown quantities.

Thus, to investigate the composition of the system we must be able to calculate the value of r (n-1) unknown quantities.

Now by elementary algebra we know that if the number of independent equations be equal to the number of unknown quantities all the unknown quantities can be determined, and can possess each one value only.

Assuming the mean motion of the moon to be known and the perigee to be fixed, three eclipses, observed in different points of the orbit, would give as many true longitudes of the moon, which longitudes could be employed to determine three unknown quantities - the mean longitude at a given epoch, the eccentricity, and the position of the perigee.