Cyclides and Separation of Variables
Dupin cyclides are a special case of a more general notion of a cyclide, which is a natural extension of the notion of a quadric surface. Whereas a quadric can be described as the zero-set of second order polynomial in Cartesian coordinates (x1,x2,x3), a cyclide is given by the zero-set of a second order polynomial in (x1,x2,x3,r2), where r2=x12+x22+x32. Thus it is a quartic surface in Cartesian coordinates, with an equation of the form:
where Q is a 3x3 matrix, P and R are a 3-dimensional vectors, and A and B are constants.
Families of cyclides give rise to various cyclidic coordinate geometries.
In Maxime Bôcher's 1891 dissertation, Ueber die Reihenentwickelungen der Potentialtheorie, it was shown that the Laplace equation in three variables can be solved using separation of variables in 17 conformally distinct quadric and cyclidic coordinate geometries. Many other cyclidic geometries can be obtained by studying R-separation of variables for the Laplace equation.
Read more about this topic: Dupin Cyclide
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