Calculus: Early Transcendentals 8th Edition

Published by Cengage Learning
ISBN 10: 1285741552
ISBN 13: 978-1-28574-155-0

Chapter 13 - Section 13.3 - Arc Length and Curvature - 13.3 Exercise - Page 869: 59

Answer

The curvature is related to the tangent and normal vectors by the equation $$ \frac{d \mathbf{T}}{d s}=\kappa \mathbf{N} . $$ See proof below.

Work Step by Step

Since the curvature $\kappa $ is given by: $$ \kappa =\left|\frac{d \mathbf{T}}{d s}\right|=\left|\frac{d \mathbf{T} / d t}{d s / d t}\right|=\frac{|d \mathbf{T} / d t|}{d s / d t} $$ and the unit normal is given by: $$ \mathbf{N}=\frac{d \mathbf{T} / d t}{|d \mathbf{T} / d t|}, $$ then $$ \begin{aligned} \kappa \mathbf{N} &=\frac{|d \mathbf{T} / d t|}{d s / d t} . \frac{d \mathbf{T} / d t}{|d \mathbf{T} / d t|} \\ &=\frac{\left|\frac{d \mathbf{T}}{d t}\right| \frac{d \mathbf{T}}{d t}}{\left|\frac{d \mathbf{T}}{d t}\right| \frac{d s}{d t}} \\ &=\frac{d \mathbf{T} / d t}{d s / d t} \ \ \ \ \text { by using the Chain Rule. }\\ &=\frac{d \mathbf{T}}{d s} . \end{aligned} $$ Therefore, the curvature is related to the tangent and normal vectors by the equation $$ \frac{d \mathbf{T}}{d s}=\kappa \mathbf{N} $$
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