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In mathematics, a tangent vector is a vector that is tangent to a curve or surface at a given point. Tangent vectors are described in the differential geometry of curves in the context of curves in R n. More generally, tangent vectors are elements of a tangent space of a differentiable manifold. Tangent vectors can also be described in terms of ...
Illustration of tangential and normal components of a vector to a surface. In mathematics, given a vector at a point on a curve, that vector can be decomposed uniquely as a sum of two vectors, one tangent to the curve, called the tangential component of the vector, and another one perpendicular to the curve, called the normal component of the vector.
If the defining relations are sufficiently smooth then, in such regions, implicit curves have well defined slopes, tangent lines, normal vectors, and curvature. There are several possible ways to compute these quantities for a given implicit curve. One method is to use implicit differentiation to compute the derivatives of y with respect to x.
Developing the equation for , and grouping the terms in and , we obtain ˙ + ˙ = ¨ + ¨ = ˙ + ˙ Denoting =, the first equation means that is orthogonal to the unit tangent vector at : = The second relation means that = where = = ˙ + ˙ [¨ ¨] is the curvature vector.
If = + is the distance from c 1 to c 2 we can normalize by =, =, = to simplify equation (1), resulting in the following system of equations: + =, + =; solve these to get two solutions (k = ±1) for the two external tangent lines: = = + = (+) Geometrically this corresponds to computing the angle formed by the tangent lines and the line of ...
Tangent to a curve. The red line is tangential to the curve at the point marked by a red dot. Tangent plane to a sphere. In geometry, the tangent line (or simply tangent) to a plane curve at a given point is, intuitively, the straight line that "just touches" the curve at that point.
A general straight-line thread connects the two points (0, k−t) and (t, 0), where k is an arbitrary scaling constant, and the family of lines is generated by varying the parameter t. From simple geometry, the equation of this straight line is y = −( k − t ) x / t + k − t .
This equation says that the vector tangent to the curve at any point x(t) along the curve is precisely the vector F(x(t)), and so the curve x(t) is tangent at each point to the vector field F. If a given vector field is Lipschitz continuous, then the Picard–Lindelöf theorem implies that there exists a unique flow for small time.