Utility Programs

Quadratic Factoriser (c++)

This is the result of a challenge set by my maths teacher. Let this be a message to all people thinking of writing a computer program to do their Maths Coursework, don't. At least if you do don't go boasting about it like I did, 'cos you'll only get given a harder problem to make a program to solve.

My Maths teacher has the first version. That is the one that is well coded, but by no means masterly. This one is masterly, and just to show off, it's open source. Its algotrithms are the fastest I can conceive, upto 8 times faster than my original version, although, since c++ is a naturally fast language the gain is not very noticable.

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An Orrery (An Astronomy tool)

The orrery was originally developed by a person called Orrery, a very long time ago. It was a mechanical device to show the movements of the planets around the Sun.

So, when I was faced with my Astronomy Coursework, it seemed like the kind of challenge that I'd like to meet. Unfortunately, I don't have a private workshop to fabricate gears in, or the experience to make them, so I turned to computers.

The school computers are blessed with far too much security, and it's completely impossible to get an executable file onto the system. Thats if you could fit it onto a floppy disk (.exes of any substance usually measure their bulk in megabytes). The solution was to use Javascript.
See it in action