Jonathan. Frech’s WebBlog

Cycloids (#127)

Jonathan Frech

A cycloid is the curve gen­er­ated by tracing a point on a smaller circle rolling around an bigger circle.
The word cycloid comes from the greek word “κύκλος” meaning “circle”. There are epicycloids and hypocycloids (smaller circle located above and beneath the bigger circle).
The cycloid is determined by the ratio be­tween the two circle’s radii $k=\frac{R}{r}$$k=\frac{R}{r}$.
More information can be found on this Wikipedia entry.

Source code: cycloids.py