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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 ...
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 point. A geometric construction was described by Isaac Newton in his Principia:
An ellipse (red) obtained as the intersection of a cone with an inclined plane. Ellipse: notations Ellipses: examples with increasing eccentricity. In mathematics, an ellipse is a plane curve surrounding two focal points, such that for all points on the curve, the sum of the two distances to the focal points is a constant.
The curvature is the reciprocal of radius of curvature. That is, the curvature is =, where R is the radius of curvature [5] (the whole circle has this curvature, it can be read as turn 2π over the length 2π R). This definition is difficult to manipulate and to express in formulas.
The equation for a conic section with apex at the origin and tangent to the y axis is + (+) = alternately = + (+) where R is the radius of curvature at x = 0. This formulation is used in geometric optics to specify oblate elliptical ( K > 0 ), spherical ( K = 0 ), prolate elliptical ( 0 > K > −1 ), parabolic ( K = −1 ), and hyperbolic ( K ...
The Cesàro equation is obtained as a relation between arc length and curvature. The equation of a circle (including a line) for example is given by the equation κ ( s ) = 1 r {\displaystyle \kappa (s)={\tfrac {1}{r}}} where s {\displaystyle s} is the arc length, κ {\displaystyle \kappa } the curvature and r {\displaystyle r} the radius of ...
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 ...
A concave mirror with light rays Center of curvature. 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.