Osculating Curve
In differential geometry, an osculating curve is a plane curve from a given family that has the highest possible order of contact with another curve. That is, if is a family of smooth curves, is a smooth curve (not in general belonging to ), and is a point on , then an osculating curve from at is a curve from that passes through and has as many of its derivatives (in succession, from the first derivative) at equal to the derivatives of as possible... The term derives from the Latinate root "osculate", to kiss, because the two curves contact one another in a more intimate way than simple tangency. Examples Examples of osculating curves of different orders include: *The tangent line to a curve at a point , the osculating curve from the family of straight lines. The tangent line shares its first derivative (slope) with and therefore has first-order contact with .. *The osculating circle to at , the osculating curve from the family of circles. The osculating circle ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Osculating Circle
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. The osculating circle provides a way to understand the local behavior of a curve and is commonly used in differential geometry and calculus. More formally, in differential geometry of curves, the osculating circle of a sufficiently smooth plane curve at a given point ''p'' on the curve has been traditionally defined as the circle passing through ''p'' and a pair of additional points on the curve infinitesimally close to ''p''. Its center lies on the inner Normal (geometry), normal line, and its curvature defines the curvature of the given curve at that point. This circle, which is the one among all ''tangent circles'' at the given point that approaches the curve most tightly, was named ''circulus osculans'' (Latin for "kissing circle") by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Leibniz. The cent ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Taylor Expansion
In mathematics, the Taylor series or Taylor expansion of a function is an infinite sum of terms that are expressed in terms of the function's derivatives at a single point. For most common functions, the function and the sum of its Taylor series are equal near this point. Taylor series are named after Brook Taylor, who introduced them in 1715. A Taylor series is also called a Maclaurin series when 0 is the point where the derivatives are considered, after Colin Maclaurin, who made extensive use of this special case of Taylor series in the 18th century. The partial sum formed by the first terms of a Taylor series is a polynomial of degree that is called the th Taylor polynomial of the function. Taylor polynomials are approximations of a function, which become generally more accurate as increases. Taylor's theorem gives quantitative estimates on the error introduced by the use of such approximations. If the Taylor series of a function is convergent, its sum is the limit o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Space Curve
In mathematics, a curve (also called a curved line in older texts) is an object similar to a line, but that does not have to be straight. Intuitively, a curve may be thought of as the trace left by a moving point. This is the definition that appeared more than 2000 years ago in Euclid's ''Elements'': "The urvedline is ��the first species of quantity, which has only one dimension, namely length, without any width nor depth, and is nothing else than the flow or run of the point which ��will leave from its imaginary moving some vestige in length, exempt of any width." This definition of a curve has been formalized in modern mathematics as: ''A curve is the image of an interval to a topological space by a continuous function''. In some contexts, the function that defines the curve is called a ''parametrization'', and the curve is a parametric curve. In this article, these curves are sometimes called ''topological curves'' to distinguish them from more constrained curves suc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Osculating Plane
In mathematics, particularly in differential geometry, an osculating plane is a plane in a Euclidean space or affine space which meets a submanifold at a point in such a way as to have a second order of contact at the point. The word ''osculate'' is ; an osculating plane is thus a plane which "kisses" a submanifold. The osculating plane in the geometry of Euclidean space curves can be described in terms of the Frenet-Serret formulas as the linear span of the tangent and normal vectors. See also * Normal plane (geometry) * Osculating circle 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. The osculating circle provides a way to unders ... * References {{Reflist Differential geometry ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Conic Section
A conic section, conic or a quadratic curve is a curve obtained from a cone's surface intersecting a plane. The three types of conic section are the hyperbola, the parabola, and the ellipse; the circle is a special case of the ellipse, though it was sometimes considered a fourth type. The ancient Greek mathematicians studied conic sections, culminating around 200 BC with Apollonius of Perga's systematic work on their properties. The conic sections in the Euclidean plane have various distinguishing properties, many of which can be used as alternative definitions. One such property defines a non-circular conic to be the set of those points whose distances to some particular point, called a '' focus'', and some particular line, called a ''directrix'', are in a fixed ratio, called the ''eccentricity''. The type of conic is determined by the value of the eccentricity. In analytic geometry, a conic may be defined as a plane algebraic curve of degree 2; that is, as the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Parabola
In mathematics, a parabola is a plane curve which is Reflection symmetry, mirror-symmetrical and is approximately U-shaped. It fits several superficially different Mathematics, mathematical descriptions, which can all be proved to define exactly the same curves. One description of a parabola involves a Point (geometry), point (the Focus (geometry), focus) and a Line (geometry), line (the Directrix (conic section), directrix). The focus does not lie on the directrix. The parabola is the locus (mathematics), locus of points in that plane that are equidistant from the directrix and the focus. Another description of a parabola is as a conic section, created from the intersection of a right circular conical surface and a plane (geometry), plane Parallel (geometry), parallel to another plane that is tangential to the conical surface. The graph of a function, graph of a quadratic function y=ax^2+bx+ c (with a\neq 0 ) is a parabola with its axis parallel to the -axis. Conversely, every ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Curvature
In mathematics, curvature is any of several strongly related concepts in geometry that intuitively measure the amount by which a curve deviates from being a straight line or by which a surface deviates from being a plane. If a curve or surface is contained in a larger space, curvature can be defined ''extrinsically'' relative to the ambient space. Curvature of Riemannian manifolds of dimension at least two can be defined ''intrinsically'' without reference to a larger space. 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 point. The curvature of a straight line is zero. In contrast to the tangent, which is a vector quantity, the curvature at a point is typically a scalar q ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Circle
A circle is a shape consisting of all point (geometry), points in a plane (mathematics), plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the Centre (geometry), centre. The distance between any point of the circle and the centre is called the radius. The length of a line segment connecting two points on the circle and passing through the centre is called the diameter. A circle bounds a region of the plane called a Disk (mathematics), disc. The circle has been known since before the beginning of recorded history. Natural circles are common, such as the full moon or a slice of round fruit. The circle is the basis for the wheel, which, with related inventions such as gears, makes much of modern machinery possible. In mathematics, the study of the circle has helped inspire the development of geometry, astronomy and calculus. Terminology * Annulus (mathematics), Annulus: a ring-shaped object, the region bounded by two concentric circles. * Circular arc, Arc: any Connected ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Slope
In mathematics, the slope or gradient of a Line (mathematics), line is a number that describes the direction (geometry), direction of the line on a plane (geometry), plane. Often denoted by the letter ''m'', slope is calculated as the ratio of the vertical change to the horizontal change ("rise over run") between two distinct points on the line, giving the same number for any choice of points. The line may be physical – as set by a Surveying, road surveyor, pictorial as in a diagram of a road or roof, or Pure mathematics, abstract. An application of the mathematical concept is found in the grade (slope), grade or gradient in geography and civil engineering. The ''steepness'', incline, or grade of a line is the absolute value of its slope: greater absolute value indicates a steeper line. The line trend is defined as follows: *An "increasing" or "ascending" line goes from left to right and has positive slope: m>0. *A "decreasing" or "descending" line goes from left to right ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Differential Geometry
Differential geometry is a Mathematics, mathematical discipline that studies the geometry of smooth shapes and smooth spaces, otherwise known as smooth manifolds. It uses the techniques of Calculus, single variable calculus, vector calculus, linear algebra and multilinear algebra. The field has its origins in the study of spherical geometry as far back as classical antiquity, antiquity. It also relates to astronomy, the geodesy of the Earth, and later the study of hyperbolic geometry by Nikolai Lobachevsky, Lobachevsky. The simplest examples of smooth spaces are the Differential geometry of curves, plane and space curves and Differential geometry of surfaces, surfaces in the three-dimensional Euclidean space, and the study of these shapes formed the basis for development of modern differential geometry during the 18th and 19th centuries. Since the late 19th century, differential geometry has grown into a field concerned more generally with geometric structures on differentiable ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |