Cycloid plates of golden age violins are closely modeled by curtate cycloid curves. Later work indicates that curtate cycloids do not serve as general models for these curves, which vary considerably. Cycloid A cycloid is the curve traced by a point on the rim of a circular wheel as the wheel rolls along a straight line without slipping. A cycloid is a specific form of trochoid and is an example of a roulette, a curve generated by a curve rolling on another curve. The cycloid, with the cusps pointing upward, is the curve of fastest descent under constant gravity, and is
Aristotle's wheel paradox else has been able to discover whether the smaller circle touches the same point twice, or proceeds by leaps and sliding.In his "Two New Sciences", Galileo uses the problem of the wheel to argue for a certain kind of atomism. Galileo begins his analysis by considering a pair of concentric hexagons, as opposed to a pair of circles. Imagining this hexagonal wheel "rolling" on a surface, Galileo notices that the inner hexagon "jumps" a little space, with each roll of the outer hexagon onto a new face. He then imagines what would happens in the limit as the number faces