Catalan's minimal surface
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This article is about the minimal surface. For the ruled surfaces, see Catalan surface.
In differential geometry, Catalan's minimal surface is a minimal surface originally studied by Eugène Charles Catalan in 1855.[1]
It has the special property of being the minimal surface that contains a cycloid as a geodesic. It is also swept out by a family of parabolae.[2]
The surface has the mathematical characteristics exemplified by the following parametric equation:[3]