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Thus the length of a curve is a non-negative real number. Usually no curves are considered which are partly spacelike and partly timelike. In theory of relativity, arc length of timelike curves (world lines) is the proper time elapsed along the world line, and arc length of a spacelike curve the proper distance along the curve.
The coordinate-independent definition of the square of the line element ds in an n-dimensional Riemannian or Pseudo Riemannian manifold (in physics usually a Lorentzian manifold) is the "square of the length" of an infinitesimal displacement [2] (in pseudo Riemannian manifolds possibly negative) whose square root should be used for computing curve length: = = (,) where g is the metric tensor ...
The equation of a line can be given in vector form: = + Here a is the position of a point on the line, and n is a unit vector in the direction of the line. Then as scalar t varies, x gives the locus of the line. The distance of an arbitrary point p to this line is given by
The arc length (length of a line segment) defined by a polar function is found by the integration over the curve r(φ). Let L denote this length along the curve starting from points A through to point B, where these points correspond to φ = a and φ = b such that 0 < b − a < 2π.
A ray with a terminus at A, with two points B and C on the right. Given a line and any point A on it, we may consider A as decomposing this line into two parts. Each such part is called a ray and the point A is called its initial point. It is also known as half-line, a one-dimensional half-space. The point A is considered to be a member of the ray.
Initially it is given all the points between the first and last point. It automatically marks the first and last point to be kept. It then finds the point that is farthest from the line segment with the first and last points as end points; this point is always farthest on the curve from the approximating line segment between the end points.
A line through three-dimensional space between points of interest on a spherical Earth is the chord of the great circle between the points. The central angle between the two points can be determined from the chord length. The great circle distance is proportional to the central angle.
Note that changing F into –F would not change the curve defined by F(x, y) = 0, but it would change the sign of the numerator if the absolute value were omitted in the preceding formula. A point of the curve where F x = F y = 0 is a singular point, which means that the curve is not differentiable at this point, and thus that the curvature is ...