I was working on a page about the Mandelbrot set as seen through an exponential (or logarithmic) coordinate transformation: http://mrob.com/pub/muency/exponentialmap.html and I ran across the need to describe the shape of an offset circle after its logarithm is taken. To be more precise: If A is a circle (viewed as a set of points on the complex plane) whose distance from the origin is greater than its radius (i.e. the origin is outside the circle), and if B is the set of points you get by taking the (complex-valued) natural logarithm of each point in A, then what type of shape is B? Is B an ellipse, some kind of superellipse (using a transcendental function perhaps)? If I need to give it a name, is there any name (like "quasi-ellipse") that doesn't already have some other meaning that would confuse my readers? -- Robert Munafo -- mrob.com Follow me at: mrob27.wordpress.com - twitter.com/mrob_27 - youtube.com/user/mrob143 - rilybot.blogspot.com