with a two-fold rotational symmetry of 180°. The gasket described by curvatures (−1, 2, 2, 3) is the only Apollonian gasket (up to a scaling factor) to possess D2 symmetry. D3 symmetry There are no integer gaskets with D3 symmetry. If the three circles with smallest positive curvature have the same curvature, the gasket will have D3 symmetry, which corresponds to three reflections along diameters of the bounding circle (spaced 120° apart), along with three-fold rotational symmetry of 120°. In this case the ratio of the curvature of the bounding circle to the three inner circles is 2 − 3. As this ratio is not rational, no integral Apollonian circle packings possess this D3 symmetry, although many packings come close. Almost-D3 symmetry The figure at left is an integral Apollonian gasket that appears to have D3 symmetry. The same figure is displayed at right, with labels indicating the curvatures of the interior circles, illustrating that the gasket actually possesses only the D1 symmetry common to many other integral Apollonian gaskets. The following table lists more of these almost-D3 integral Apollonian gaskets. The sequence has some interesting properties, and the table lists a factorization of the curvatures, along with the multiplier needed to go from the previous set to the current one. The absolute values of the curvatures of the "a" disks obey the recurrence relation , from which it follows that the multiplier converges to + 2 ≈ 3.732050807. Sequential curvatures For any integer n > 0, there exists an Apollonian gasket defined by the following curvatures: (−n, n + 1, n(n + 1), n(n + 1) + 1). For example, the gaskets defined by (−2, 3, 6, 7), (−3, 4, 12, 13), (−8, 9, 72, 73), and (−9, 10, 90, 91) all follow this pattern. Because every interior circle that is defined by n + 1 can become the bounding circle (defined by −n) in another gasket, these gaskets can be nested. This is demonstrated in the figure at right, which contains these sequential gaskets with n running from 2 through 20. See also Apollonian network, a graph derived from finite subsets of the Apollonian gasket Apollonian sphere packing, a three-dimensional generalization of the Apollonian gasket Sierpiński triangle, a self-similar fractal with a similar combinatorial structure Notes References Benoit B. Mandelbrot: The Fractal Geometry of Nature, W H Freeman, 1982, Paul D. Bourke: "An Introduction to the Apollony Fractal".