Geometric Model, L. Brill No. 61. Ser. 5 No. 16c, Cyclide (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 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 is nearly spherical in shape, with one quadrant cut away that contains a smaller, rounded surface. Various arcs of circles representing lines of curvature are indicated on it. The elliptical wooden stand is painted black. A paper number tag reads: 61. Another paper tag reads: Dupin'sche Cyclide (/) Verl. v. L. Brill. 5 Ser. Nr. XVIc. A pencil mark on the bottom of the stand reads: V.XVIc.
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: Description
content: Website of the Mathematics Institute at Oxford University, accessed September, 2017.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
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: 1985.0112.046
label: catalog number
content: 1985.0112.046
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: wood (base material)
label: Physical Description
content: paper (tags material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 9.5 cm x 12.3 cm x 12.3 cm; 3 3/4 in x 4 27/32 in x 4 27/32 in