A method of machining a surface of a workpiece is accomplished by bringing
a cutting tool into contact with the surface of the workpiece and for at
least one cutting pass, i, causing relative movement between the cutting
tool and the surface of the workpiece along a path in the surface of the
workpiece. The path is in the nature of a mathematical function defined
over a segment, C, of a coordinate system and characterized by a set of
nonrandom, random or pseudorandom parameters selected from the group
consisting of amplitude, phase and period or frequency. Relative movement
between the cutting tool and the surface of the workpiece may be
accomplished by bandpass filtering a noise signal; providing the bandpass
filtered signal to a function generator; generating a randomly modulated
mathematical function from the function generator; and in response to the
randomly modulated function, directing the relative movement between the
cutting tool and the surface of the workpiece along the path in the
surface of the workpiece.