The sine function is a well known periodic function. Choose an argument factor, which doesn’t divide the period well, and add another sine function with a different factor, and you can see a complicated path around the origin.
This plot was originally made for my blog post on TikZ.de: http://tikz.de/periodisch/
See also the other polar sine plot examples there.
Edit and compile if you like:\documentclass[border=10pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\usepgfplotslibrary{polar}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{polaraxis}[
domain = -3600:3600,
samples = 4000
]
\addplot[blue!50!black] {1 - sin(50*x/49) - sin(8*x)};
\end{polaraxis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
