Seiffert's spiral

Seiffert's spherical spiral is a curve on a sphere made by moving on the sphere with constant speed and angular velocity with respect to a fixed diameter. (If one takes the diameter to be the line from the north pole to the south pole, then the requirement of constant angular velocity means that the longitude of the moving point is changing at a constant rate.)^[1] The cylindrical coordinates of the varying point on this curve turn out to be given by the Jacobian elliptic functions.

References

^ Bowman, F (1961). Introduction to Elliptic Functions with Applications. New York: Dover.

Seiffert, A. (1896), Ueber eine neue geometrische Einführung in die Theorie der elliptischen Functionen, vol. 127, Wissensch. Beiträge Jahresber. Städtischen Realschule zu Charlottenburg, Ostern, JFM 27.0337.02
Erdös, Paul (2000), "Spiraling the Earth with C. G. J. Jacobi", American Journal of Physics, 88 (10): 888–895, doi:10.1119/1.1285882

External links

Weisstein, Eric W. "Seiffert's Spherical Spiral". MathWorld.

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[1] Bowman, F (1961). Introduction to Elliptic Functions with Applications. New York: Dover.

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