The system allow one to produce with ease animations of mathematical objects like
I was set into animating a cycloid. This is the curve describe by a point on a circle rotating over a line without slipping.
This is actually a very interesting curve that was studied by Galileo, Roberval, Fermat, Descartes, Huygen and Johann Bernoulli in fact he discover this curve is a brachistochrone even more he propose the problem of finding the curve of fastest descent and inaugurating with this problem the variational calculus.
The animation above creates a curve named prolate cycloid one is able to find the meaning of the word prolate in
and we also have then the curtate cycloid.
Manipulate[
Graphics[
{
{Thick, Yellow, Disk[{x, 1}, 1]},
{Thick, Orange, Circle[{x, 1}, 1]},
{Blue, Thickness[.008],
Line[{{x, 1}, {x - q Sin[x], 1 – q Cos[x]}}]},
{PointSize[Large], Red, Point[{x, 1}]},
{PointSize[Large], Magenta, Point[{x - q Sin[x], 1 – q Cos[x]}]},
If[trace,
{Red, Thick,
Line[
Table[{t - q Sin[t], 1 – q Cos[t]}, {t, 0, x, 0.001}]
]}]
}, AspectRatio -> Automatic, Background -> Black,
ImageSize -> {640, 480}, ImagePadding -> 100, AxesOrigin -> {0, 0},
If[va, Axes -> True, Axes -> {True, False}],
AxesStyle -> Directive[Thick, Orange, If[p < 2 Pi, 24, 12]],
PlotRange -> {{-1, 2 p + .5}, {-.5, 2.3}},
If[ticks, Ticks -> {Range[IntegerPart[2 p + .5]], {1, 2}},
Ticks -> {{None}, {None}}]
], {{x, 0}, 0, 2 p, 0.001}, {{q, 1}, 0.01, 5, 0.001}, {{p, Pi},
0.01, 4 Pi,
0.001}, {trace, {True, False}}, {ticks, {True, False}}, {va, {True,
False}}
]