info prev up next book cdrom email home

Hyperbolic Spiral

\begin{figure}\begin{center}\BoxedEPSF{hyperbolic_spiral.epsf scaled 750}\end{center}\end{figure}

An Archimedean Spiral with Polar equation

\begin{displaymath}
r={a\over\theta}.
\end{displaymath}

The hyperbolic spiral originated with Pierre Varignon in 1704 and was studied by Johann Bernoulli between 1710 and 1713, as well as by Cotes in 1722 (MacTutor Archive).

See also Archimedean Spiral, Spiral


References

Gray, A. Modern Differential Geometry of Curves and Surfaces. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, pp. 69-70, 1993.

Lawrence, J. D. A Catalog of Special Plane Curves. New York: Dover, pp. 186 and 188, 1972.

Lockwood, E. H. A Book of Curves. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, p. 175, 1967.

MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive. ``Hyperbolic Spiral.'' http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Curves/Hyperbolic.html.




© 1996-9 Eric W. Weisstein
1999-05-25