INTRODUCTION

Welcome to this website on Dynamic Curves. We are going to study a dozen or so classical curves in the plane, and look at the relationships between them. The word ‘Dynamic’ is chosen deliberately, because the content here is based on a set of Java applets. These are constructed using Java Sketchpad (JSP). If you are interested in learning more about JSP, you might like to check out the website Linkages with Java :

http://internal.maths.adelaide.edu.au/people/pscott/linkages/index.html

We won’t be carrying out this sort of detailed discussion of the Java code here, but you can easily discover the workings by viewing the source code for the page containing a given applet. I recommend that you try your hand at writing applets like these. They are not (too!) difficult to write, and it is very rewarding seeing the constructions come to life. In fact, many of the programs have less than a dozen lines of code, and I am amazed at how easy it is to construct a satisfying applet with so little effort! You are welcome to download and use the JSP applets which appear here, but acknowledgment of their source would be appreciated.

A rather sophisticated but excellent selction of Java applets on the curves discussed here (and some others) can be found at:

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Java/index.html

However, these pages give little background to the curves, or detail about them.

The dynamic approach that we are taking means that we won’t be spending a lot of time discussing the detailed (static) properties of many of these curves. If you want to do this, then I suggest you borrow from the library the excellent book:

A Book of Curves, Lockwood E. H., Cambridge University Press (1967)

I suspect this classic is by now long out of print. This web site draws on the material in Lockwood’s book, and I acknowledge my indebtedness to this source.

One might be tempted to argue that much of this old mathematics is by now dated and beyond its use-by date, but it is surprising how ideas cycle with time – a bit like fashion with clothes.

To the best of my knowledge, this website makes no use of copyrighted material. If any unintentional infringement has occurred, please contact the author.

I hope you enjoy browsing this site. I am always happy to receive corrections or comments.

Paul Scott  (2009)              mail@paulscott.info                     www.paulscott.info