Wolfram Demonstrations Project

12,000+ Open Interactive Demonstrations
Powered by Notebook Technology »

Newton's Method of Drawing the Cissoid of Diocles

Initializing live version
Download to Desktop

Requires a Wolfram Notebook System

Interact on desktop, mobile and cloud with the free Wolfram Player or other Wolfram Language products.

This Demonstration shows Newton's method of drawing the cissoid of Diocles. The length of and the point are fixed. As you drag on the straight line , is kept perpendicular to . The midpoint of traces out the cissoid.

Contributed by: Izidor Hafner (September 2012)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA

Snapshots

Details

According to [1], the method uses two line segments of equal length at right angles. If they are moved so that one line always passes through a fixed point and the end of the other line segment slides along a straight line, then the mid-point of the sliding line segment traces out a cissoid of Diocles.

Reference

[1] J. J. O'Connor and E. F. Robertson. "Cissoid of Diocles." (Jan 1997) www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Curves/Cissoid.html.

Embed Code

Take advantage of the Wolfram Notebook Emebedder for the recommended user experience.

Related Demonstrations More by Author
Browse all topics
Feedback (field required)
Email (field required) Name
Occupation Organization
Note: Your message & contact information may be shared with the author of any specific Demonstration for which you give feedback.
Send