13 3 Arc Length and Curvature Copyright Cengage Learning All rights reserved Arc Length and Curvature We have defined the length of a plane curve with parametric equations x f t y g t a t b as the limit of lengths of inscribed polygons and for the case where f and g are continuous we arrived at the formula The length of a space curve is defined in exactly the same way see Figure 1 The length of a space curve is the limit of lengths of inscribed polygons Figure 1 2 Arc Length and Curvature Suppose that the curve has the vector equation r t f t g t h t a t b or equivalently the parametric equations x f t y g t z h t where f g and h are continuous If the curve is traversed exactly once as t increases from a to b then it can be shown that its length is 3 Arc Length and Curvature Notice that both of the arc length formulas put into the more compact form and can be because for plane curves r t f t i g t j and for space curves r t f t i g t j h t k 4 Example 1 Find the length of the arc of the circular helix with vector equation r t cos t i sin t j t k from the point 1 0 0 to the point 1 0 2 Solution Since r t sin t i cos t j k we have The arc from 1 0 0 to 1 0 2 is described by the parameter interval 0 t 2 and so from Formula 3 we have 5 Arc Length and Curvature A single curve C can be represented by more than one vector function For instance the twisted cubic r1 t t t2 t3 1 t 2 could also be represented by the function r2 u eu e2u e3u 0 u ln 2 where the connection between the parameters t and u is given by t eu We say that Equations 4 and 5 are parametrizations of the curve C 6 Arc Length and Curvature If we were to use Equation 3 to compute the length of C using Equations 4 and 5 we would get the same answer In general it can be shown that when Equation 3 is used to compute arc length the answer is independent of the parametrization that is used Now we suppose that C is a curve given by a vector function r t f t i g t j h t k a t b where r is continuous and C is traversed exactly once as t increases from a to b 7 Arc Length and Curvature We define its arc length function s by Thus s t is the length of the part of C between r a and r t See Figure 3 Figure 3 8 Arc Length and Curvature If we differentiate both sides of Equation 6 using Part 1 of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus we obtain It is often useful to parametrize a curve with respect to arc length because arc length arises naturally from the shape of the curve and does not depend on a particular coordinate system 9 Arc Length and Curvature If a curve r t is already given in terms of a parameter t and s t is the arc length function given by Equation 6 then we may be able to solve for t as a function of s t t s Then the curve can be reparametrized in terms of s by substituting for t r r t s Thus if s 3 for instance r t 3 is the position vector of the point 3 units of length along the curve from its starting point 10 Curvature 11 Curvatures A parametrization r t is called smooth on an interval I if r is continuous and r t 0 on I A curve is called smooth if it has a smooth parametrization A smooth curve has no sharp corners or cusps when the tangent vector turns it does so continuously If C is a smooth curve defined by the vector function r recall that the unit tangent vector T t is given by and indicates the direction of the curve 12 Curvatures From Figure 4 you can see that T t changes direction very slowly when C is fairly straight but it changes direction more quickly when C bends or twists more sharply Unit tangent vectors at equally spaced points on C Figure 4 13 Curvatures The curvature of C at a given point is a measure of how quickly the curve changes direction at that point Specifically we define it to be the magnitude of the rate of change of the unit tangent vector with respect to arc length We use arc length so that the curvature will be independent of the parametrization 14 Curvatures The curvature is easier to compute if it is expressed in terms of the parameter t instead of s so we use the Chain Rule to write But ds dt r t from Equation 7 so 15 Example 3 Show that the curvature of a circle of radius a is 1 a Solution We can take the circle to have center the origin and then a parametrization is r t a cos t i a sin t j Therefore so r t a sin t i a cos t j and r t a and T t cos t i sin t j 16 Example 3 Solution cont d This gives T t 1 so using Equation 9 we have 17 Curvature The result of Example 3 shows that small circles have large curvature and large circles have small curvature in accordance with our intuition We can see directly from the definition of curvature that the curvature of a straight line is always 0 because the tangent vector is constant Although Formula 9 can be used in all cases to compute the curvature the formula given by the following theorem is often more convenient to apply 18 The Normal and Binormal Vectors 19 The Normal and Binormal Vectors At a given point on a smooth space curve r t there are many vectors that are orthogonal to the unit tangent vector T t We single out one by observing that because T t 1 for all t we have T t T t 0 so T t is orthogonal to T t Note that T t is itself not a unit vector But at any point where 0 we can define the principal unit normal vector N t or simply unit normal as 20 The Normal and Binormal Vectors The vector B t T t N t is called the binormal vector It is perpendicular to both T and N and is also a unit vector See Figure 6 Figure 6 21 Example 6 Find the unit normal and binormal vectors for the circular helix r t cos t i sin t j t k Solution We first compute the ingredients needed for the unit normal …
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