This is getting at the idea behind the Fourier transform. 3b1b did an excellent video with exactly this visualization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spUNpyF5

This is getting at the idea behind the Fourier transform. 3b1b did an excellent video with exactly this visualization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spUNpyF58BY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spUNpyF58BY The idea is that wrapping a function around a circle at the right frequency (i.e. length per spiral) will cause peaks and troughs to align. It just happens here that the "right" frequency is 1/year.