Rolling a Sphere around a Circle without Slipping

The circular locus of contact points on the sphere (shown with a blue dashed line) has radius . The angle for , where is an integer.

The sphere's configuration will be periodic if and only if

,

where is a rational number greater than 1. Also, is the ratio of to the radius . Thus, if , the sphere resumes its initial configuration every times around the circle. As an example, if , a unit sphere rolling around a plane circle of radius returns to its initial configuration every three times around the circle. The smallest circle with a period of one (i.e., for which the sphere's configuration repeats with each trip around the circle) has the radius , whereas the smallest circle with a period of two has the radius .. In general, the smallest circle with period has radius .

Reference

[1] K. Brown. "Rolling Spheres and Cones." MathPages. (2011). www.mathpages.com/home/kmath227/kmath227.htm.