Johan Gielis

Johan Gielis (born July 8, 1962 ) is a Belgian engineer, scientist, mathematician and entrepreneur.

Life

Johan Gielis specialized in biotechnology and is particularly concerned with the mathematical modeling of plants.

In 1997, influenced by the work of Piet Hein and Gabriel Lamé , Gielis published the super formula , a generalization of Lamé's curve . Using the super formula, it is possible to uniformly describe outlines of different symmetry.

${\displaystyle {\frac {1}{r}}={\sqrt[{n_{1}}]{\,\left|{\frac {1}{a}}\cos \left({\frac {m}{4}}\phi \right)\right|^{n_{2}}+\left|{\frac {1}{b}}\sin \left({\frac {m}{4}}\phi \right)\right|^{n_{3}}}}}$

r : distance from the center

Φ: angle to the x-axis

m : symmetry

n ₁ , n ₂ , n ₃ : shape

a , b : extension (semi-axes)

In 1999, Johan Gielis founded Geniaal in order to further develop and market his ideas for teaching as well as for scientific and technological applications. In 2002 Gielis became the managing director of the newly founded company Genicap. Its focus is the technological use of the super formula.

In 2003 Johan Gielis generalized the super formula to the spatial shape of bodies ( supershape ).

Works

• Johan Gielis: Inventing the circle. The geometry of nature . - Antwerp: Geniaal Press, 2003. ISBN 90-807756-1-4
• Johan Gielis: A generic geometric transformation that unifies a wide range of natural an abstract shapes. 2003. American Journal of Botany 90 (3): 333-338.

Web links

• Genicap, Johan Gieli's homepage
• P. Bourke: Supershapes (Superformula)
• Eric W. Weisstein: Superellipse. (MathWorld - A Wolfram Web Resource)
• Graphic "super formula": A circle is a square is a fish is a starfish (heise)
• Supershapes (Java applet)