Chebyshev Linkage

Chebyshev was a famous Russian mathematician.

One of the many pursuits of mathematicians in his time was to find a way to turn rotational input into a linear output. Chebyshev studied the problem, and the result is the linkage below.

This document requires an HTML5-compliant browser.
Arms Length
Top Length
Angle
38.00000 0 90.00000

Change the dimensions of a and b. How do they change the
line generated by the motion?

Is this a real straight line, or is it an approximation?

How do you know?

If it's an approximation, how close do you think it is?

App generated by Geometry Expressions