Imagine a robot that had to go from point to point consecutively (based on x values) on a two dimensional x-y plane. The shortest path in this case would simply be drawing linear splines thru consecutive data. What if the path is demanded to be smooth? Then what!
Well one may use polynomial or quadratic/cubic spline interpolation to develop the path. Which path would be shorter? To find out thru an anecdotal example, click here.
This post is brought to you by Holistic Numerical Methods: Numerical Methods for the STEM undergraduate at http://nm.mathforcollege.com
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