Curve Stitching and Dancing Planets

Abstract

Curve stitching is a classic educational activity where one constructs elegant curves from a family of straight lines. We perform curve stitching around a circle to make a modular stitch graph. Take $m$ points equally spaced around a circle, choose an integer multiplier $a$, and draw a chord from point $p$ to $ap\mathrm{mod}m$. What design will appear as the envelope of these chords? We connect these discrete objects to a continuous-time dynamical system and apply a topological perspective to understand the answer to this question.

22 pages, 24 figures