Limaçon
Type of roulette curve / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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In geometry, a limaçon or limacon /ˈlɪməsɒn/, also known as a limaçon of Pascal or Pascal's Snail, is defined as a roulette curve formed by the path of a point fixed to a circle when that circle rolls around the outside of a circle of equal radius. It can also be defined as the roulette formed when a circle rolls around a circle with half its radius so that the smaller circle is inside the larger circle. Thus, they belong to the family of curves called centered trochoids; more specifically, they are epitrochoids. The cardioid is the special case in which the point generating the roulette lies on the rolling circle; the resulting curve has a cusp.
Depending on the position of the point generating the curve, it may have inner and outer loops (giving the family its name), it may be heart-shaped, or it may be oval.
A limaçon is a bicircular rational plane algebraic curve of degree 4.