What is a circle?
Japanese flag
Most people would describe the Japanese flag as being a red circle on a white background. But is it really, mathematically speaking?
Reader Irshad Hussain recently asked for “a clear definition of a circle. He wondered if the circle is only a boundry or does it include the whole interior also?
When you think “circle”, do you see a curve, like this:
Or do you think of it as a region, like this?
Math Open Reference defines a circle as:
A line forming a closed loop, every point on which is a fixed distance from a center point.
This is the first diagram above.
The American Heritage Science Dictionary gives the following definition, also considering the circle as a curve, not a region:
A closed curve whose points are all on the same plane and at the same distance from a fixed point (the center).
Wolfram|Alpha also defines it as a plane curve. (And thats all. Even though it lists several important equations for circles, no mention is made of the property of equidistance from a point).
Googles definitions cover both cases, but give precedence to the region definition (the second diagram):
1. A round plane figure whose boundary (the circumference) consists of points equidistant from a fixed point (the center) 2. The line enclosing such a figure
Heres a definition that gives a broader view:
Ellipse in which the two axes are of equal length.
One of the silliest definitions is from the The American Heritage Dictionary:
Circle: A planar region bounded by a circle.
How can an object be bounded by itself? One could argue the definition itself is circular.
Is the circular region a disk?
The simplest solution is to define a circle as a plane curve and a disk as a plane region, bounded by a circle. However, disk to me suggests a 3-dimensional object (a very flat cylinder).
What are your thoughts on how we should define a cirlce?
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