Template:POTD/2011-11-13
An illustration of how two mathematical surfaces, the helicoid and the catenoid, may be transformed into one another. This transformation is a local isometry. The catenoid was the first minimal surface to be discovered, by Leonhard Euler in 1744. Jean Baptiste Meusnier discovered the helicoid in 1766, and its name derives from its similarity to a helix.Image: Wickerprints