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Re:An Introduction to Lagrange Multipliers by ryan-duve on Saturday November 20, 2021 @11:44PM (#29294243)
Just want to thank you for the resource! The MS Paint (?) drawing of the river and accompanying explanation got through to me more than all the textbooks that tried to describe the same thing. I hope you find a way to keep it online for many more generations of math learners!
Re:An Introduction to Lagrange Multipliers by Steuard on Sunday November 21, 2021 @11:01AM (#29297154)
I appreciate the kind words! And yeah, that could have even been MS Paint: it's been a long time, and I was still using Windows a lot back then. (I made the first version of this page for my wife when the topic came up in one of her graduate math courses: I'd had a much better exposure to Lagrange multipliers in my Calc 3 class than she'd had, and since she was studying in another state at the time I wrote it up in HTML instead of on paper.) I've occasionally thought about going back and redrawing those first few images in some better form, but hey: they still get the idea across perfectly well.

I have every intention of keeping it online indefinitely, as long as my friends doing the hosting don't get sick of me mooching off their web space.