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The length of the curve is given by the formula = | ′ | where | ′ | is the Euclidean norm of the tangent vector ′ to the curve. To justify this formula, define the arc length as limit of the sum of linear segment lengths for a regular partition of [ a , b ] {\displaystyle [a,b]} as the number of segments approaches infinity.
The chord function can be related to the modern sine function, by taking one of the points to be (1,0), and the other point to be (cos θ, sin θ), and then using the Pythagorean theorem to calculate the chord length: [2]
The arc length of one branch between x = x 1 and x = x 2 is a ln y 1 / y 2 . The area between the tractrix and its asymptote is π a 2 / 2 , which can be found using integration or Mamikon's theorem. The envelope of the normals of the tractrix (that is, the evolute of the tractrix) is the catenary (or chain curve) given by y = a ...
Historically, the curvature of a differentiable curve was defined through the osculating circle, which is the circle that best approximates the curve at a point. More precisely, given a point P on a curve, every other point Q of the curve defines a circle (or sometimes a line) passing through Q and tangent to the curve at P.
The equation of a line is given by = +. The equation of the normal of that line which passes through the point P is given y = x 0 − x m + y 0 {\displaystyle y={\frac {x_{0}-x}{m}}+y_{0}} . The point at which these two lines intersect is the closest point on the original line to the point P.
Other lengths may be used—such as 100 metres (330 ft) where SI is favoured or a shorter length for sharper curves. Where degree of curvature is based on 100 units of arc length, the conversion between degree of curvature and radius is Dr = 18000/π ≈ 5729.57795 , where D is degree and r is radius.
Radius of curvature and center of curvature. In differential geometry, the radius of curvature, R, is the reciprocal of the curvature.For a curve, it equals the radius of the circular arc which best approximates the curve at that point.
Graphs of curves y 2 = x 3 − x and y 2 = x 3 − x + 1. Although the formal definition of an elliptic curve requires some background in algebraic geometry, it is possible to describe some features of elliptic curves over the real numbers using only introductory algebra and geometry.