Ride a bike with round wheels and it rolls smoothly on a flat road (i.e., the axle remains level). Can you get a bike with square wheels to roll smoothly on a road of some other shape? Surprisingly, yes. A road made up of inverted catenaries will do the trick! A catenary is a portion of a cosh curve. Figure 1 shows how such a bike would roll.

Ride a bike with round wheels and it rolls smoothly on a flat road (i.e., the axle remains level). Can you get a bike with square wheels to roll smoothly on a road of some other shape?

Surprisingly, yes. A road made up of inverted catenaries will do the trick! A catenary is a portion of a cosh curve. Figure 1 shows how such a bike would roll.

#cosh curve  #bike  #wheel  #square  #motion  
∞  11/17/09
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    All roads should look like this. Let us end this crazy
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