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In geometry, the center of curvature of a curve is a point located at a distance from the curve equal to the radius of curvature lying on the curve normal vector. It is the point at infinity if the curvature is zero. The osculating circle to the curve is centered at the centre of curvature. Cauchy defined the center of curvature C as the ...
The locus of the centers of all the osculating circles (also called "centers of curvature") is the evolute of the curve. If the derivative of curvature κ'(t) is zero, then the osculating circle will have 3rd-order contact and the curve is said to have a vertex. The evolute will have a cusp at the center of the circle.
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 ...
The evolute of a curve (blue parabola) is the locus of all its centers of curvature (red). The evolute of a curve (in this case, an ellipse) is the envelope of its normals. In the differential geometry of curves, the evolute of a curve is the locus of all its centers of curvature. That is to say that when the center of curvature of each point ...
The radius of curvature usually is taken as positive (that is, as an absolute value), while the curvature κ is a signed quantity. A geometric approach to finding the center of curvature and the radius of curvature uses a limiting process leading to the osculating circle. [30] [31] See image above.
An osculating circle is a circle that best approximates the curvature of a curve at a specific point. It is tangent to the curve at that point and has the same curvature as the curve at that point. [2] The osculating circle provides a way to understand the local behavior of a curve and is commonly used in differential geometry and calculus.
The normal curvature, k n, is the curvature of the curve projected onto the plane containing the curve's tangent T and the surface normal u; the geodesic curvature, k g, is the curvature of the curve projected onto the surface's tangent plane; and the geodesic torsion (or relative torsion), τ r, measures the rate of change of the surface ...
Differential geometry takes another path: curves are represented in a parametrized form, and their geometric properties and various quantities associated with them, such as the curvature and the arc length, are expressed via derivatives and integrals using vector calculus.