Arc Length of Cycloid
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A polygon rolls on a line
. The positions of a vertex when
has a side flush with
form a polygonal path (orange). The orange segments are the base sides of green isosceles triangles. When you drag the "combine" slider, the green triangles combine to form a right triangle with height
, the diameter of incircle of the polygon. Hence, the length of the orange path is the sum of the height and the hypotenuse of this triangle.
Contributed by: Okay Arik (March 2011)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
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