Does the function $f: \mathbb R \to \mathbb R^2, t \mapsto (t^3, t^2)$ have a history?

Question

I heard one mathematician briefly mentioning that the function $f: \mathbb R \to \mathbb R^2, t \mapsto (t^3, t^2)$ is very famous and has a history.

Do you know what was meant by that?

Answer 1

“It seems that $f$ is the historic earliest example of a curved path of whom the length of compact segments of that path (similar to the length of straight path's segments) may be calculated exactly and purely algebraic (even polynomial in expressions of square root!) from the coordinates of start- and endpoint: that was not considered possible (since Aristotle) concerning curved paths.”

Roughly translated from Peter Dombrowski, Wege in euklidischen Ebenen: Springer, 1999.