Beautiful! Precise, succinct, mathematically accurate. Minor nit....use of
"helix" in definition's final phrase "scale of another helix" might cause my
English teacher to challenge the recursive reference. I also resorted to a
little Google help on this one and came up with this:

http://dict.die.net/helix/

I still prefer the definition where I get to wave my hand around, or get to
say something like:

"A helix is nothing more than the shape of a screw" and leave the rest up to
the imagination......





"Tim Smith" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Smarty" wrote:
I am reminded of the challenge I was once given by an English teacher:

Describe in writing a helix without using either a drawing or your hands
to
illustrate......

Hexix: A curve described by the parametric equation

x = cos(t)
y = sin(t)
z = t

where t ranges over the real numbers, or any curve that results from a
rotation, translation, reflection, or change of scale of another helix.

--
--Tim Smith