Sample Chapter

The Tractrix and Similar Curves

Author: Walter Gander, Stanislav Bartoň, Jiří Hřebíček

We generalize the classical tractrix problem (Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, 17th century: "Given a watch attached to a chain, what is the orbit in the plane described by the watch as the endpoint of the chain is pulled along a straight line?") to compute the orbit of a toy pulled by a child, and then we compute the orbit of a dog which attacks a jogger. We use MATLAB for numerical solving two similar system of differential equations and show also how the motions can be visualized by MATLAB.

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