Geometric Model, L. Brill No. 62. Ser. 5 No. 16d, Cyclide (Parabolic Spindle Cyclide)
date: label: date made
content: 1892
name: label: maker
content: L. Brill
notes: label: Description
content: As an undergraduate at the École polytechnique in Paris, French naval engineer and mathematician Charles Dupin (1784-1873) described a set of surfaces based on inversions of the torus – surfaces that came to be called Dupin cyclides. All the lines of curvature on such surfaces are circles or straight lines. Dupin published a description of cyclides in 1822. Between 1879 and 1885, Alexander Brill and his students and colleagues would publish several different models of Dupin cyclides. This is one of them, sold by the German firm of Ludwig Brill from 1879. It was exhibited at the Columbia Exposition held in Chicago in 1893 and then acquired by Wesleyan University.
label: Description
content: This model is of a parabolic spindle cyclide. It is formed by the inversion of a spindle torus (a torus formed when a circle rotates about an axis that passes through a chord of the circle). It is one of four models of cyclides designed by Peter Vogel (1856-1915), a student in Munich who would go one to teach mathematics at the war academy in that city.
label: Description
content: The plaster model has a cusp-shaped piece that arches over the base. Various circular arcs, representing lines of curvature, are on the surface. A paper number tag reads: 62. Another paper tag reads: Dupin'sche Cyclide (/) Verl. v. L. Brill. 5 Ser. Nr. XVId.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: L. Brill, <I>Catalog mathematischer Modelle. . .</I>, Darmstadt: L. Brill,1892, p. 11, 66.
label: Description
content: G. Fischer, <I>Mathematical Models: Commentary</I>, Braunschweig / Wiesbaden: Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn, 1986, pp. 28-30.
label: Description
content: Ulf Hashagen, “ Die Mathematik und ihre Assistenten an der TH Munchen (1868-1918), <I>Mathematics and Theoretical Physics</I>, <I>Symposia Gaussiana</I>, ed. M. Behara, R. Fritsch, and R.G. Lintz, 1995, pp. 136-140.
label: Description
content: D. Hilbert and S. Cohn-Vossen, <I>Geometry and the Imagination</I>, New York: Chelsea, 1952, pp. 217-219.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Germany: Hesse, Darmstadt
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Wesleyan University
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1985.0112.047
label: catalog number
content: 1985.0112.047
label: accession number
content: 1985.0112
objectType: label: Object Name
content: geometric model
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: plaster (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 11.5 cm x 15.2 cm x 13.5 cm; 4 17/32 in x 5 31/32 in x 5 5/16 in