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Arc lengths are denoted by s, since the Latin word for length (or size) is spatium. In the following lines, r {\displaystyle r} represents the radius of a circle , d {\displaystyle d} is its diameter , C {\displaystyle C} is its circumference , s {\displaystyle s} is the length of an arc of the circle, and θ {\displaystyle \theta } is the ...
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 ...
Functions that maximize or minimize functionals may be found using the Euler–Lagrange equation of the calculus of variations. A simple example of such a problem is to find the curve of shortest length connecting two points. If there are no constraints, the solution is a straight line between the points. However, if the curve is constrained to ...
The arc length, from the familiar geometry of a circle, is s = θ R {\displaystyle s={\theta }R} The area a of the circular segment is equal to the area of the circular sector minus the area of the triangular portion (using the double angle formula to get an equation in terms of θ {\displaystyle \theta } ):
The great-circle distance, orthodromic distance, or spherical distance is the distance between two points on a sphere, measured along the great-circle arc between them. This arc is the shortest path between the two points on the surface of the sphere. (By comparison, the shortest path passing through the sphere's interior is the chord between ...
where c ∈ ℝ n is the center of the circle (irrelevant since it disappears in the derivatives), a,b ∈ ℝ n are perpendicular vectors of length ρ (that is, a · a = b · b = ρ 2 and a · b = 0), and h : ℝ → ℝ is an arbitrary function which is twice differentiable at t.
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]
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.