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Apollonian fractals
An example of an Apollonian gasket
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In mathematics, an Apollonian gasket or Apollonian net is a fractal generated
from triples of circles, where each circle is tangent to the other two. It is named
after Greek mathematician Apollonius of Perga.
1 Construction
2 Curvature
3 Variations
4 Symmetries
5 Links with hyperbolic geometry
6 Integral Apollonian circle packings
6.1 Symmetry of integral Apollonian circle packings
6.1.1 No symmetry
6.1.2 D
1
symmetry
6.1.3 D
2
symmetry
6.1.4 D
3
symmetry
6.1.5 Almost-D
3
symmetry
6.2 Sequential curvatures
7 See also
8 Notes
9 References
10 External links
An Apollonian gasket can be constructed as follows. Start with three circles C
1
,
C
2
and C
3
, each one of which is tangent to the other two (in the general
construction, these three circles can be any size, as long as they have common
tangents). Apollonius discovered that there are two other non-intersecting circles,
C
4
and C
5
, which have the property that they are tangent to all three of the
original circles these are called Apollonian circles (see Descartes' theorem).
Adding the two Apollonian circles to the original three, we now have five circles.
Take one of the two Apollonian circles say C
4
. It is tangent to C
1
and C
2
, so the
triplet of circles C
4
, C
1
and C
2
has its own two Apollonian circles. We already
know one of these it is C
3
but the other is a new circle C
6
.
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Apollonian sphere packing
In a similar way we can construct another new circle C
7
that is tangent to C
4
, C
2
and C
3
, and another circle C
8
from C
4
,
C
3
and C
1
. This gives us 3 new circles. We can construct another three new circles from C
5
, giving six new circles
altogether. Together with the circles C
1
to C
5
, this gives a total of 11 circles.
Continuing the construction stage by stage in this way, we can add 23
n
new circles at stage n, giving a total of 3
n+1
+ 2
circles after n stages. In the limit, this set of circles is an Apollonian gasket.
The Apollonian gasket has a Hausdorff dimension of about 1.3057.
[1]
The curvature of a circle (bend) is defined to be the inverse of its radius.
Negative curvature indicates that all other circles are internally tangent to that circle. This is bounding circle
Zero curvature gives a line (circle with infinite radius).
Positive curvature indicates that all other circles are externally tangent to that circle. This circle is in the interior of
circle with negative curvature.
An Apollonian gasket can also be constructed by replacing one of the generating
circles by a straight line, which can be regarded as a circle passing through the
point at infinity.
Alternatively, two of the generating circles may be replaced by parallel straight
lines, which can be regarded as being tangent to one another at infinity. In this
construction, the circles that are tangent to one of the two straight lines form a
family of Ford circles.
The three-dimensional equivalent of the Apollonian gasket is the Apollonian
sphere packing.
If two of the original generating circles have the same radius and the third circle
has a radius that is two-thirds of this, then the Apollonian gasket has two lines of reflective symmetry; one line is the line
joining the centres of the equal circles; the other is their mutual tangent, which passes through the centre of the third
circle. These lines are perpendicular to one another, so the Apollonian gasket also has rotational symmetry of degree 2;
the symmetry group of this gasket is D
2
.
If all three of the original generating circles have the same radius then the Apollonian gasket has three lines of reflective
symmetry; these lines are the mutual tangents of each pair of circles. Each mutual tangent also passes through the centre
of the third circle and the common centre of the first two Apollonian circles. These lines of symmetry are at angles of 60
degrees to one another, so the Apollonian gasket also has rotational symmetry of degree 3; the symmetry group of this
gasket is D
3
.
The three generating circles, and hence the entire construction, are determined by the location of the three points where
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they are tangent to one another. Since there is a Mbius transformation which maps any three given points in the plane to
any other three points, and since Mbius transformations preserve circles, then there is a Mbius transformation which
maps any two Apollonian gaskets to one another.
Mbius transformations are also isometries of the hyperbolic plane, so in hyperbolic geometry all Apollonian gaskets are
congruent. In a sense, there is therefore only one Apollonian gasket, up to (hyperbolic) isometry.
The Apollonian gasket is the limit set of a group of Mbius transformations known as a Kleinian group.
[2]
Integral Apollonian
circle packing defined
by circle curvatures of
(1, 2, 2, 3)

Integral Apollonian
circle packing defined
by circle curvatures of
(3, 5, 8, 8)

Integral Apollonian
circle packing defined
by circle curvatures of
(12, 25, 25, 28)

Integral Apollonian
circle packing defined
by circle curvatures of
(6, 10, 15, 19)
Integral Apollonian
circle packing defined
by circle curvatures of
(10, 18, 23, 27)
If any four mutually tangent circles in an Apollonian gasket all have integer curvature then all circles in the gasket will
have integer curvature.
[3]
Since the equation relating curvatures in an Apollonian gasket, integral or not, is
it follows that we may move from one quadruple of curvatures to another by Vieta jumping, just as we do when finding a
new Markov number. The first few of these integral Apollonian gaskets are listed in the following table. The table lists
the curvatures of the largest circles in the gasket. Only the first three curvatures (of the five displayed in the table) are
needed to completely describe each gasket all other curvatures can be derived from these three.
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Integral Apollonian gaskets
Beginning curvatures Symmetry
1, 2, 2, 3, 3
D
2
2, 3, 6, 7, 7
D
1
3, 4, 12, 13, 13
D
1
3, 5, 8, 8, 12
D
1
4, 5, 20, 21, 21
D
1
4, 8, 9, 9, 17
D
1
5, 6, 30, 31, 31
D
1
5, 7, 18, 18, 22
D
1
6, 7, 42, 43, 43
D
1
6, 10, 15, 19, 19
D
1
6, 11, 14, 15, 23
C
1
7, 8, 56, 57, 57
D
1
7, 9, 32, 32, 36
D
1
7, 12, 17, 20, 24
C
1
8, 9, 72, 73, 73
D
1
8, 12, 25, 25, 33
D
1
8, 13, 21, 24, 28
C
1
9, 10, 90, 91, 91
D
1
9, 11, 50, 50, 54
D
1
9, 14, 26, 27, 35
C
1
9, 18, 19, 22, 34
C
1
10, 11, 110, 111, 111
D
1
10, 14, 35, 39, 39
D
1
10, 18, 23, 27, 35
C
1
Integral Apollonian gaskets
Beginning curvatures Symmetry
11, 12, 132, 133, 133
D
1
11, 13, 72, 72, 76
D
1
11, 16, 36, 37, 45
C
1
11, 21, 24, 28, 40
C
1
12, 13, 156, 157, 157
D
1
12, 16, 49, 49, 57
D
1
12, 17, 41, 44, 48
C
1
12, 21, 28, 37, 37
D
1
12, 21, 29, 32, 44
C
1
12, 25, 25, 28, 48
D
1
13, 14, 182, 183, 183
D
1
13, 15, 98, 98, 102
D
1
13, 18, 47, 50, 54
C
1
13, 23, 30, 38, 42
C
1
14, 15, 210, 211, 211
D
1
14, 18, 63, 67, 67
D
1
14, 19, 54, 55, 63
C
1
14, 22, 39, 43, 51
C
1
14, 27, 31, 34, 54
C
1
15, 16, 240, 241, 241
D
1
15, 17, 128, 128, 132
D
1
15, 24, 40, 49, 49
D
1
15, 24, 41, 44, 56
C
1
15, 28, 33, 40, 52
C
1
15, 32, 32, 33, 65
D
1
Symmetry of integral Apollonian circle packings
No symmetry
If none of the curvatures are repeated within the first five, the gasket contains no symmetry, which is represented by
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(15, 32, 32, 33) (15, 32, 32, 33)
symmetry group C
1
; the gasket described by curvatures (10, 18, 23, 27) is an example.
D
1
symmetry
Whenever two of the largest five circles in the gasket have the same curvature, that gasket will have D
1
symmetry, which
corresponds to a reflection along a diameter of the bounding circle, with no rotational symmetry.
D
2
symmetry
If two different curvatures are repeated within the first five, the gasket will have D
2
symmetry; such a symmetry consists
of two reflections (perpendicular to each other) along diameters of the bounding circle, with a two-fold rotational
symmetry of 180. The gasket described by curvatures (1, 2, 2, 3) is the only Apollonian gasket (up to a scaling factor)
to possess D
2
symmetry.
D
3
symmetry
There are no integer gaskets with D
3
symmetry.
If the three circles with smallest positive curvature have the same curvature, the gasket will have D
3
symmetry, which
corresponds to three reflections along diameters of the bounding circle (spaced 120 apart), along with three-fold
rotational symmetry of 120. In this case the ratio of the curvature of the bounding circle to the three inner circles is
. As this ratio is not rational, no integral Apollonian circle packings possess this D
3
symmetry, although many
packings come close.
Almost-D
3
symmetry
The figure at left is an integral Apollonian
gasket that appears to have D
3
symmetry.
The same figure is displayed at right, with
labels indicating the curvatures of the
interior circles, illustrating that the gasket
actually possesses only the D
1
symmetry
common to many other integral
Apollonian gaskets.
The following table lists more of these
almost-D
3
integral Apollonian gaskets.
The sequence has some interesting
properties, and the table lists a
factorization of the curvatures, along with
the multiplier needed to go from the previous set to the current one. The absolute values of the curvatures of the "a" disks
obey the recurrence relation a(n) = 4a(n 1) a(n 2) (sequence A001353 in OEIS), from which it follows that
the multiplier converges to
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Nested Apollonian gaskets
Integral Apollonian gaskets with near-D
3
symmetry
Curvature Factors Multiplier
a b c d a b d a b c d
1 2 2 3 11 12 13 N/A N/A N/A N/A
4 8 9 9 22 24 33 4.000000000 4.000000000 4.500000000 3.000000000
15 32 32 33 35 48 311 3.750000000 4.000000000 3.555555556 3.666666667
56 120 121 121 87 815 1111 3.733333333 3.750000000 3.781250000 3.666666667
209 450 450 451 1119 1530 1141 3.732142857 3.750000000 3.719008264 3.727272727
780 1680 1681 1681 3026 3056 4141 3.732057416 3.733333333 3.735555556 3.727272727
2911 6272 6272 6273 4171 56112 41153 3.732051282 3.733333333 3.731112433 3.731707317
10864 23408 23409 23409 11297 112209 153153 3.732050842 3.732142857 3.732302296 3.731707317
40545 87362 87362 87363 153265 209418 153571 3.732050810 3.732142857 3.731983425 3.732026144
Sequential curvatures
For any integer n > 0, there exists an Apollonian gasket defined by the following
curvatures:
(n, n + 1, n(n + 1), n(n + 1) + 1).
For example, the gaskets defined by (2, 3, 6, 7), (3, 4, 12, 13), (8, 9, 72, 73),
and (9, 10, 90, 91) all follow this pattern. Because every interior circle that is
defined by n + 1 can become the bounding circle (defined by n) in another
gasket, these gaskets can be nested. This is demonstrated in the figure at right,
which contains these sequential gaskets with n running from 2 through 20.
Sierpiski triangle
Apollonian network, a graph derived from finite subsets of the Apollonian
gasket
^ http://abel.math.harvard.edu/~ctm/papers/home/text/papers/dimIII/dimIII.pdf 1.
^ Counting circles and Ergodic theory of Kleinian groups by Hee Oh Brown. University Dec 2009
(http://www.math.brown.edu/~heeoh/AMSKMS.pdf)
2.
^ Ronald L. Graham, Jeffrey C. Lagarias, Colin M. Mallows, Alan R. Wilks, and Catherine H. Yan; "Apollonian Circle
Packings: Number Theory" J. Number Theory, 100 (2003), 1-45 (http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/cache/papers/cs/15837
/http:zSzzSzwww.math.tamu.eduzSz~catherine.yanzSz.zSzFileszSzPart4_10.pdf/apollonian-circle-packings-number.pdf)
3.
Benoit B. Mandelbrot: The Fractal Geometry of Nature, W H Freeman, 1982, ISBN 0-7167-1186-9
Paul D. Bourke: "An Introduction to the Apollony Fractal (http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/papers
Apollonian gasket - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonian_gasket
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/apollony/)". Computers and Graphics, Vol 30, Issue 1, January 2006, pages 134136.
David Mumford, Caroline Series, David Wright: Indra's Pearls: The Vision of Felix Klein, Cambridge University
Press, 2002, ISBN 0-521-35253-3
Jeffrey C. Lagarias, Colin L. Mallows, Allan R. Wilks: Beyond the Descartes Circle Theorem, The American
Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 109, No. 4 (Apr., 2002), pp. 338361, (arXiv:math.MG/0101066 v1 9 Jan 2001
(http://arxiv.org/pdf/math.MG/0101066))
Weisstein, Eric W., "Apollonian Gasket" (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ApollonianGasket.html), MathWorld.
Alexander Bogomolny, Apollonian Gasket (http://www.cut-the-knot.org/Curriculum/Geometry
/ApollonianGasket.shtml), cut-the-knot
An interactive Apollonian gasket running on pure HTML5 (http://closet.zao.se/emilk/circles.html) (the link is
dead)
(English) A Matlab script to plot 2D Apollonian gasket with n identical circles (http://www.mathworks.com
/matlabcentral/fileexchange/loadFile.do?objectId=15987&objectType=FILE) using circle inversion
Online experiments with JSXGraph (http://jsxgraph.uni-bayreuth.de/wiki/index.php/Apollonian_circle_packing)
Apollonian Gasket (http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/ApollonianGasket/) by Michael Screiber, The Wolfram
Demonstrations Project.
Interactive Apollonian Gasket (http://code.google.com/p/fract-iag/) Demonstration of an Apollonian gasket
running on Java
Dana Mackenzie. A Tisket, a Tasket, an Apollonian Gasket (http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2010
/1/a-tisket-a-tasket-an-apollonian-gasket). American Scientist, January/February 2010.
"Sand drawing the world's largest single artwork" (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/6824326/Sand-
drawing-the-worlds-largest-single-artwork.html), The Telegraph, 16 Dec 2009. Newspaper story about an artwork
in the form of a partial Apollonian gasket, with an outer circumference of nine miles.
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