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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.
Examples of osculating curves of different orders include: The tangent line to a curve C at a point p, the osculating curve from the family of straight lines. The tangent line shares its first derivative with C and therefore has first-order contact with C. [1] [2] [4] The osculating circle to C at p, the osculating curve from the family of circles.
Osculating circles of the Archimedean spiral, tangent to the spiral and having the same curvature at the tangent point. The spiral itself is not drawn, but can be seen as the points where the circles are especially close to each other.
Animation depicting evolution of a Cornu spiral with the tangential circle with the same radius of curvature as at its tip, also known as an osculating circle.. To travel along a circular path, an object needs to be subject to a centripetal acceleration (for example: the Moon circles around the Earth because of gravity; a car turns its front wheels inward to generate a centripetal force).
The osculating circle to the curve is centered at the centre of curvature. Cauchy defined the center of curvature C as the intersection point of two infinitely close normal lines to the curve. [1] The locus of centers of curvature for each point on the curve comprise the evolute of the curve.
For curves, the canonical example is that of a circle, which has a curvature equal to the reciprocal of its radius. Smaller circles bend more sharply, and hence have higher curvature. The curvature at a point of a differentiable curve is the curvature of its osculating circle — that is, the circle that best approximates the curve near this ...
The osculating plane has the special property that the distance from the curve to the osculating plane is O(s 3), while the distance from the curve to any other plane is no better than O(s 2). This can be seen from the above Taylor expansion. Thus in a sense the osculating plane is the closest plane to the curve at a given point.
Examples of circular motion include: special satellite orbits around the Earth (circular orbits), a ceiling fan's blades rotating around a hub, a stone that is tied to a rope and is being swung in circles, a car turning through a curve in a race track, an electron moving perpendicular to a uniform magnetic field, and a gear turning inside a ...