Spinning points

Imagine two points spinning round a circle at the same speed.

Now imagine their midpoint. What shape would the midpoint trace out as the points spin round? Does it make a difference where the first two points start?

What would the trace of the midpoint look like if one of the points was spinning twice as fast as the other?

After trying to visualise it, you make like to use Geogebra to see if you are right. Instructions are here. For a bigger challenge, don’t use “point on object”, but just use a slider and try and create the two points using the slider as a parameter.

En francais.

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