cardioid-parametric-from-wikimedia-commons
- cardioid-from-wikimedia-commons
Cardioids (heart shapes) are made by tracing a point on a moving circle that rolls without slipping on the outside of a circle of equal size. That’s quite a mouthful, but the graphic at the beginning of this post gives some idea of what this description is talking about.
You can also explore some nice sites for further use with students. Four websites that have very nice Java apps and a number of beautiful cardioid graphics are the following:
- From Wikipedia
- From Cut the Knot
- From Wolfram Math World
- From Xah Lee Web
If you have a TI-83 compatible graphing calculator, you can graph the cardioid by changing the MODE setting to Polar, then inputting the following polar equation: r = 5 – 5sin(theta).
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