ods of drawing tangents. The name Limacon comes from the Latin word limax which means a snail. While Roberval is often given credit for this curve, many of the members of the Mersenne group contributed to its development. When b = 2a then the limacon becomes a * a while if b = a then it becomes a trisectrix. Cissoid of Diocles: (no information) Folium of Descartes: This curve was first thought of in 1638, but Roberval believed that the leaf shape was repeated in each quadrant when it is only in quadrant I. This curve has an asymptote x + y + a = 0. This curve passes through the origin at t = 0 and comes close to the origin as t goes to infinity. As is clearly evident through this information, both Michael Stifel and Gilles Personne de Roberval made great contributions to the world of mathematics. Life today would just not be the same if these two men had not done their important work. Word Count: 1534 ...
