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Jason S
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spiral of Theodorus

A long time ago when I was in college I read about making a spiral out of right triangles with sides 1 and sqrt(N). (A google search seems to indicate that this is called the Spiral of Theodorus.)

(grrr. image would go here but I'm a new user.)

I spent a long time trying to prove that the series of points approximated a spiral R = Kθ + φ, by trying to show the limit of the difference φ = sqrt(N+1) - K*sum(atan(1/sqrt(N)) existed for some K. I think I managed to do it but it was confusing and can't find my papers. (and I'm still an amateur mathematician!)

Is this a known problem, and is there a closed-form solution to K and φ ?

Jason S
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