The Polar Equations for Hearts and Flowers

February 14th, 2008 | Categories: general math, mathematica, Wolfram Demonstrations | Tags:

For my final Valentine’s day post I thought I would share a minor discovery I made while playing around with the polar equation

\light r=1-\sin(n\theta)

When n=1 the graph of this equation is a rotated cardioid which is exactly what I expected after reading the Math World page on the Heart Curve.

While playing around with the parameters I discovered that if you increase the value of n (to 10 say) then the resulting plot looks like a flower.

Very apt considering the time of year I think. If you would like to play with this equation yourself then feel free to try my very simple Wolfram Demonstration which was published today.

1 trackbacks