Literary notes about Cycloid (AI summary)
The word "cycloid" has appeared in literature with a fascinating dual role, serving both as a mathematically precise term and as a creative metaphor. Early on, it was listed alongside other curves to describe the rectification of curves via various coordinates in a serious mathematical context [1]. This technical usage continued, as seen in discussions involving the motion of points along a cycloidal path, such as the curved trajectory marked on the flange of a locomotive-wheel [2] and the motion of a heavy point constrained to follow this precise path [3]. Yet, the term also found its way into imaginative literature, where Jonathan Swift whimsically ascribed the shape to a pudding [4], and Edgar Allan Poe invoked cycloid figures to evoke vivid, if enigmatic, imagery [5].
- Circle, hyperbola, cycloid, logarithmic spiral, &c. Rectification of curves by rectilinear or polar co-ordinates.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - But if you mark a point B on the circumference of the flange of a locomotive-wheel, the curve will be a curtate cycloid, as in Fig.
— from Amusements in Mathematics by Henry Ernest Dudeney - Motion of a heavy point compelled to remain in a circle or cycloid.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - In the first course, there was a shoulder of mutton cut into an equilateral triangle, a piece of beef into a rhomboides, and a pudding into a cycloid.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift - In brief—distinct grounds, and vivid circular or cycloid figures, of no meaning, are here Median laws.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe
