On the linkage varieties of watt 6-bar mechanisms—III. Topology of the real varieties

Abstract

In Part III of this paper we determine the topology of the generic real linkage curves for the Watt I and Watt II mechanisms. We show that these curves are real isomorphic, and reduce the proble, of determining the topology of that of counting the number of critical points of natural projections. The main result is that the curves have at most four topological components.