Pursuit Curves and Mathematical art

Extract

During the course of Civil Service committee meetings it is socially acceptable to draw doodles instead of smoking. The two drawings exhibited here are elaborations of a committee-meeting triangular doodle which consists of one sixth of the first drawing. This triangular doodle differs from one independently discovered by Robison (1954)* in that the present one has smaller angles and is taken right to the centre of the triangle. In fact Robison had such large angles that there was no illusion of any enveloped curves in his diagram. I am told by Mr. R. A. Fairthorne that these curves have for long been called ‘pursuit curves.’ By fitting congruent right-handed and left-handed triangular doodles together at random we get an agglomeration of ‘spearheads’ and ‘hyperboloids,’ as in the first drawing. It consists entirely of straight lines and can be drawn without using any skill. The method could be used for producing a dazzling form of wall-paper, possibly suitable for a scientific exhibition.