English

Poncelet Propellers: Invariant Total Blade Area

Metric Geometry 2021-08-13 v1 Computational Geometry Robotics Dynamical Systems

Abstract

Given a triangle, a trio of circumellipses can be defined, each centered on an excenter. Over the family of Poncelet 3-periodics (triangles) in a concentric ellipse pair (axis-aligned or not), the trio resembles a rotating propeller, where each "blade" has variable area. Amazingly, their total area is invariant, even when the ellipse pair is not axis-aligned. We also prove a closely-related invariant involving the sum of blade-to-excircle area ratios.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2101.10456,
  title  = {Poncelet Propellers: Invariant Total Blade Area},
  author = {Dominique Laurain and Daniel Jaud and Dan Reznik},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2101.10456},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

9 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, and 7 videos

R2 v1 2026-06-23T22:31:23.523Z