Alex Kern - Proof of the length of an innitely decaying spiral > > After being inspired by a Japanese horror

comic called Uzumaki, which roughly translates into spiral, I became enthralled with the notion that I could nd the length of an innitely decaying spiral using the known summation of a geometric series. I spent the rest of that night and most of the next day working out what I could in my head while hanging out with my friends. Finally, given a moment of free time between classes, I began working on, rstly, an equation for my innitely decaying spiral, which I have aectionately dubbed, and will hereby refer to as, a Kern Spiral. Before I did that, however, I researched the internet I to see if anyone had done what I was trying to accomplish.

scanned for probably about an hour, looking at dierent spirals, logarithmic, Archimedes, etc., and I couldn't even nd a formula representation for my spiral, yet alone a formula for the length. So I began ddling with my calculator, trying to come up with an equation for what I was trying to represent. Finally, after way longer than I'd like to admit, I arrived at the general formula:

r = r0 A 2 Where r0
half every

is the initial radius of the spiral, and

is the factor by which it

is decaying. (A

= 1/2) would yield a spiral whose rotation if 0 < A < 1, and r0 > 0

radius would decrease by one

>here you see a Kern Spiral with >

r0 = 8

and

A = 1/2

I then began working on nding the length of the spiral, so I found the formula for an Arc Length of a polar equation from our book: >


>

r2 + r 2 d

and began working out the math:

r = =

A 2 lnAr0 2

(lnA) +4 lnA TI-89 can do it for me)

>

|A 2 r0 |

(r0 A 2 )2 + ( A 2 lnAr0 )2 d 2 2 2
(I had no idea how to go about this. Luckily, my

Here I arrived at the general integral for my arc length. Since I can't set up and solve for an interval from 0 to innity, I set it up to nd the length of one rotation of the arc: >

>rst rotation of the aforementioned Kern Spiral > >

(r0 A 2 )2 + ( A 2 lnAr0 )2 d 2 0 (lnA)2 +4 2 = |r0 | (|A| 1) lnA 2

to

> I then noticed that the integral from the integral from

would be exactly the same as

to

of a Kern Spiral with initial radius of

further, the next Spiral Arc would be so on as represented below. >

r0 A2 ,

the next would be

A r0 , and even r0 A3 , and

> > The arc length formula remains the same, with the initial radius being the only thing that changes. BINGO! My hunch that I could come to an exact length using the denition of the Summation of a Geometric Series was rearmed, so I set up the summation using > >

An

|r0 | An (|A| 1)
> >

n=0

(lnA)2 + 4 2 lnA

Using the denition of a geometric series, this summation is equal to the rst value over 1 minus the common ratio: >

(lnA)2 +4 2 |r0 |(|A|1) lnA 1A >

> In conclusion, the length of any Kern Spiral with formula: >

r = r0 A 2 (0 < A < 1), = [0, )

> Has the exact length: >

(lnA)2 +4 2 |r0 |(|A|1) lnA 1A >

since >

is bounded from 0 to 1, and

r0 > 0,

we can knock o the absolute

values and arrive at the form:

 (lnA)2 +4 2 r0 (A1) lnA 1A >

>or >

r0 (A 1)
>

(lnA)2 +4 2 (1A)(lnA)

>So the length of the above spiral, about 72.9577 units

1 2 r =8 = 8 ( 1 1) 2 2

(ln 1 )2 +4 2 2 or (1 1 )(ln 1 ) 2 2

And the length of this spiral,

r = 10

9 2 9 = 10 ( 10 1) 10

9 (ln 10 )2 +4 2 or 9 9 (1 10 )(ln 10 )

about 596.9577 (this actually turns out to be 10x the distance of the rst arc, i havent found the exact relation to this yet) > > While I was very happy to come up with a new bit of geometry using what we've learned (and at the time, would have learned later), I couldn't nd any practical applications for my Kern Spiral. Nothing in physics seems to move in this matter, everything I found such as orbital decay had to deal with Logarithmic Spirals. So yeah, there's probably not a Nobel prize coming my way, but it still felt good to attack a problem that to my knowledge has never been tried, and nd a solution. Its not as pretty as say,

A = r2 ,

but I mean, come

on, it's the exact length of something innitely long. Just sounds cool, right?