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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. For surfaces, the radius of curvature is the radius of a circle that best fits a normal section or ...
This circle, which is the one among all tangent circles at the given point that approaches the curve most tightly, was named circulus osculans (Latin for "kissing circle") by Leibniz. The center and radius of the osculating circle at a given point are called center of curvature and radius of curvature of the curve at that
In geometry, a curve of constant width is a simple closed curve in the plane whose width (the distance between parallel supporting lines) is the same in all directions. The shape bounded by a curve of constant width is a body of constant width or an orbiform, the name given to these shapes by Leonhard Euler. [1]
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.
A curve of constant width is a figure whose width, defined as the perpendicular distance between two distinct parallel lines each intersecting its boundary in a single point, is the same regardless of the direction of those two parallel lines. The circle is the simplest example of this type of figure.
In the following equations, denotes the sagitta (the depth or height of the arc), equals the radius of the circle, and the length of the chord spanning the base of the arc. As 1 2 l {\displaystyle {\tfrac {1}{2}}l} and r − s {\displaystyle r-s} are two sides of a right triangle with r {\displaystyle r} as the hypotenuse , the Pythagorean ...
The radius of such a curve is 5729.57795. If the chord definition is used, each 100-unit chord length will sweep 1 degree with a radius of 5729.651 units, and the chord of the whole curve will be slightly shorter than 600 units.
This curve will in general have different curvatures for different normal planes at p. The principal curvatures at p, denoted k 1 and k 2, are the maximum and minimum values of this curvature. Here the curvature of a curve is by definition the reciprocal of the radius of the osculating circle. The curvature is taken to be positive if the curve ...