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Lecture

TNB Frame: Frenet-Serret Formulas

In course

MATH-123(b): Geometry

The course provides an introduction to the study of curves and surfaces in Euclidean spaces. We will learn how we can apply ideas from differential and integral calculus and linear algebra in order to "measure shapes". ...

Description

This lecture covers the TNB frame, consisting of the tangent, normal, and binormal vectors, which define a local rectangular coordinate system along a curve. It also explains the Frenet-Serret formulas, which describe the behavior of a curve using the tangent, normal, and binormal vectors. The lecture delves into the concept of the TNB frame moving along a curve, the formulas for calculating the TNB frame, and the implications of the TNB frame in understanding the local behavior of a curve.

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Instructor

Dimitri Stelio Wyss

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Related concepts (17)

Frenet–Serret formulas

In differential geometry, the Frenet–Serret formulas describe the kinematic properties of a particle moving along a differentiable curve in three-dimensional Euclidean space , or the geometric properties of the curve itself irrespective of any motion. More specifically, the formulas describe the derivatives of the so-called tangent, normal, and binormal unit vectors in terms of each other. The formulas are named after the two French mathematicians who independently discovered them: Jean Frédéric Frenet, in his thesis of 1847, and Joseph Alfred Serret, in 1851.

Tangent vector

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 Rn. More generally, tangent vectors are elements of a tangent space of a differentiable manifold. Tangent vectors can also be described in terms of germs. Formally, a tangent vector at the point is a linear derivation of the algebra defined by the set of germs at .

Tangent space

In mathematics, the tangent space of a manifold is a generalization of to curves in two-dimensional space and to surfaces in three-dimensional space in higher dimensions. In the context of physics the tangent space to a manifold at a point can be viewed as the space of possible velocities for a particle moving on the manifold. In differential geometry, one can attach to every point of a differentiable manifold a tangent space—a real vector space that intuitively contains the possible directions in which one can tangentially pass through .

Tangent bundle

In differential geometry, the tangent bundle of a differentiable manifold is a manifold which assembles all the tangent vectors in . As a set, it is given by the disjoint union of the tangent spaces of . That is, where denotes the tangent space to at the point . So, an element of can be thought of as a pair , where is a point in and is a tangent vector to at . There is a natural projection defined by . This projection maps each element of the tangent space to the single point .

Vector field

In vector calculus and physics, a vector field is an assignment of a vector to each point in a space, most commonly Euclidean space . A vector field on a plane can be visualized as a collection of arrows with given magnitudes and directions, each attached to a point on the plane. Vector fields are often used to model, for example, the speed and direction of a moving fluid throughout three dimensional space, such as the wind, or the strength and direction of some force, such as the magnetic or gravitational force, as it changes from one point to another point.

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