English

Curve Stitching and Dancing Planets

History and Overview 2025-11-20 v1

Abstract

Curve stitching is a classic educational activity where one constructs elegant curves from a family of straight lines. We perform curve stitching around a circle to make a modular stitch graph. Take mm points equally spaced around a circle, choose an integer multiplier aa, and draw a chord from point pp to apmodma p \mod m. What design will appear as the envelope of these chords? We connect these discrete objects to a continuous-time dynamical system and apply a topological perspective to understand the answer to this question.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.14828,
  title  = {Curve Stitching and Dancing Planets},
  author = {Frances Herr},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.14828},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

22 pages, 24 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T07:44:04.941Z