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Concept
Reuleaux triangle
Summary
A Reuleaux triangle ʁœlo is a curved triangle with constant width, the simplest and best known curve of constant width other than the circle. It is formed from the intersection of three circular disks, each having its center on the boundary of the other two. Constant width means that the separation of every two parallel supporting lines is the same, independent of their orientation. Because its width is constant, the Reuleaux triangle is one answer to the question "Other than a circle, what shape can a manhole cover be made so that it cannot fall down through the hole?"
Reuleaux triangles have also been called spherical triangles, but that term more properly refers to triangles on the curved surface of a sphere.
They are named after Franz Reuleaux, a 19th-century German engineer who pioneered the study of machines for translating one type of motion into another, and who used Reuleaux triangles in his designs. However, these shapes were known before his time, for instance by the designers of Gothic church windows, by Leonardo da Vinci, who used it for a map projection, and by Leonhard Euler in his study of constant-width shapes. Other applications of the Reuleaux triangle include giving the shape to guitar picks, fire hydrant nuts, pencils, and drill bits for drilling filleted square holes, as well as in graphic design in the shapes of some signs and corporate logos.
Among constant-width shapes with a given width, the Reuleaux triangle has the minimum area and the sharpest (smallest) possible angle (120°) at its corners. By several numerical measures it is the farthest from being centrally symmetric. It provides the largest constant-width shape avoiding the points of an integer lattice, and is closely related to the shape of the quadrilateral maximizing the ratio of perimeter to diameter. It can perform a complete rotation within a square while at all times touching all four sides of the square, and has the smallest possible area of shapes with this property.
Official source
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