Differential Geometry Notes

AUTHORS

September 2023
2
Contents

I Preliminaries 5
1 Curves 9
1.1 Definition and some Restrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2 Arc-length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.3 Geometric quantities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.3.1 The tangent vector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.3.2 The curvature vector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.4 Curves in R2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.4.1 The main interpretations of the curvature scalar . . . . . 21
1.4.2 Curvature determines curve up to rigid motion . . . . . . 26
1.4.3 The interaction between global and local . . . . . . . . . . 27

3
4 CONTENTS
 Part I

Preliminaries

5
 7

We start with some of the most intuitive examples of the type of manifolds
we will be working with, that is, with curves and surfaces embedded in some
form of RN .
8
Chapter 1

Curves

In this chapter, we will deal with curves. We first define what we mean by
a curve, and impose some restrictions on the kind of curve we want to deal
with. We won’t prove all the things we claim in this chapter, as some of these
things you should have already seen in a Calculus class and this is only a quick
overview.

1.1 Definition and some Restrictions

Given that this is Differential Geometry, we do not want to work with discon-
tinuous curves. We therefore choose to work with smooth curves.

Definition 1.1.1 (Smooth curve). We define a smooth curve in N dimensions

to be a function from some interval I to RN , which is smooth. Mathematically:

A smooth curve is a function γ : I → RN so that it is in C ∞ (I)

The interval can be any sort of interval you want, open, closed, half-open,
etc. We also allow things like (∞, 0]. You can see an example in Figure 1.1.
The thing we are interested the most in in Differential Geometry, is not actually
the parametrization of the curve. What we usually mean by the curve is the
actual line in RN that you can draw on a piece of paper. That is what we mean
by a curve. The actual real geometric line, not the function that assigns it a
parameter value. That is why the parametrization is not the main player in
Differential Geometry. The curve exists independent of parametrization. It is
(mathematically) the image of the function γ, We will use names like γ for the
image of the function, not just for the function, as that is what we care about
the most.
Smoothness is not the only property we will (usually) want a curve we work
with to have, because smoothness in the sense above does not guarantee that
the image of the curve is a smooth object. (It only requires the parametrization
to be smooth.) We can see this with the example below.

9
10 CHAPTER 1. CURVES

Figure 1.1: An example of a smooth curve. The Interval I gets mapped onto a
curve in R3 with the function γ

Figure 1.2: The curve γ : t ∈ R → (t2 , t3 ) ∈ R2 . At t = 0 we see that the image

of the curve is not a smooth object
1.2. ARC-LENGTH 11

Example 1.1.1 (Smooth parametrization doesn’t imply smooth image). Take

the curve γ : t ∈ R → (t2 , t3 ) ∈ R2 . It is clear that this is a smooth curve. (The
coefficients are polynomials in t, all the derivatives exist and are continuous.)
But look at Figure 1.2. The image of the curve is obviously not smooth in R2
at t = 0 or equivalently x = (0, 0). What is happening over there? Well, it
resembles the absolute value function a bit. It also had a sort of sharp bend
at a point. The problem back then was with the derivative. It simply did not
exist, which made the curve have a weird behavior (the sharp bend).Similarly,
here the problem is also with the derivative. It exists, obviously, since this is a
smooth curve. But it becomes 0 at the problem point (t = 0 or the origin). A
curve with such a bend is not something we want to really work with, therefore
we put another restriction on the curves we work with. We eliminate curves like
the one from this example simply by saying we don’t work with curves whose
derivative becomes 0 anywhere.

As we saw in the previous example, we get into problem situations if the

derivative of the curve with respect to the parametrization parameter is zero.
We therefore define regular curves as those for which this doesn’t happen, or in
other words, where the velocity never vanishes.

Definition 1.1.2 (regular curves). A smooth curve is called a regular curve, if:

dγ
̸= 0 for all t ∈ I (1.1)
dt
where γ is the smooth curve and I is the interval it is defined on.

Note 1. We will use various notations for the derivative of a curve. These
include:
dγ
= γt = γ̇ (1.2)
dt

1.2 Arc-length
Now that we have said what we mean by a curve and restricted it so as to not
run into problems like the one in the example above, we can start with the
geometry. Undeniably, one of the most important quantities in geometry is the
length. If you know the lengths of a problem, you already know quite a bit of
the geometry. What is the length of a (piece of a) curve?
Well, we already restricted ourselves to work with regular curves, so our
motivation will be more on the intuitive side.
Imagine you have any curve, like the one in the figure 1.3. The idea is that
we divide the curve into very small almost-straight parts, calculate the length
of these parts by approximating that part as a straight line and then summing
up all of those back together. We can do it for reasonable (i.e regular) curves.
Of course, in reality what we do is go infinitesimal, at which point this becomes
an integral.
12 CHAPTER 1. CURVES

For the small piece as seen in the figure, we have ∆s = dγ

dt ∆t, where by ’s’
we mean the length and by ∆s the very small length of that very small part.
Afterwards we add all of these up, and in the continuum limit we get an integral:
Z Z t
dγ
s(t) = ds dt (1.3)
γ t0 dt

Figure 1.3: A curve and our intuitive way to understand the definition of the
arc-length. We zoom in on a very small part of the curve, between t′ and t′ +∆t.
There, if ∆t is small enough, the line will be approximately straight and we can
use the velocity vector to calculate the length of that piece approximately. Note
that the velocity vector is drawn in way smaller than it would actually be for
any reasonable ∆t, just so that the picture is clearer.

Definition 1.2.1 (Arc-length). We define the arc-length of a curve γ : I → Rn ,

by first choosing a specify point t0 ∈ I and it’s image γ(t0 ) as a reference point.
Then the arc length s(t) between t and t0 is:
Z t
dγ
s(t) = dt (1.4)
t0 dt Rn

Note that in the definition we did not assume that t > t0 , a negative arc-
length is possible, simply by going into the opposite direction of the parametriza-
tion of the curve.
We already mentioned that the geometrically interesting object is the image
of γ, not the function γ (i.e the parametrization) itself. We will care mostly
for things we can define on the image of γ that are not dependant on that
1.3. GEOMETRIC QUANTITIES 13

parametrization. The arc-length is something independent of the parametriza-

tion1
In line with this philosophy, we can define a very convenient, but also more
geometrically ”real” parametrization. The idea is that the arc-length is a geo-
metric object independent of parametrization, and that, for regular curves, we
can use the arc-length to parameterize the curve.
Lemma 1.2.1 (Reparametrization of a regular curve). Let γ : t ∈ I → RN be
a regular curve. Then we can re-parameterize it to a new (regular) curve β(s),
so that
dβ
=1 (1.5)
ds
In other words, we parameterize it by the arc-length s,
Proof. We will only sketch the proof, as this is something rather simple and you
very likely already saw the proof in a calculus class2
The first step is to take the arc-length and see it as a function of t:
Z t
dγ
s = f (t) = dt (1.6)
t0 dt

We can then take the inverse of this function, call it g(s) = f −1 and express
t as a function of s. If we take β = γ ◦ g = γ(g(s)), we found the right
parametrization. The only thing left that you need to convince yourself is that
the velocity is really of unit length. (You can do this using the chain rule.)
Of course, the curve is still regular, and all the properties like smoothness
are still obeyed by the curve. The image of β and γ is of course exactly the
same, i.e, you can’t change the curve simply by re-parameterizing. You might
find Figure 1.4 helpful in visualizing this.

1.3 Geometric quantities

We continue our search for geometric quantities (other than arc-length), that
we can find in connection to curves. We will find that the tangent vector and
the curvature vector (see definition below) are both independent of the specific
parametrization of our curve and that they tell us a lot of geometric information.

1.3.1 The tangent vector

You have, throughout your studies, seen many functions, and many curves.
Your intuition from Calculus about the tangent vector will probably make you
very quickly say that the the tangent vector (here called τ ) should look like this:
1 Of course, we can always choose to parameterize the curve in the other direction, which

changes the arc-length by a minus. We can also choose a different reference point other than
γ(t0 ). But these are choices that are rather trivial and we won’t really mention them from
now on.
2 If not, try it yourself as an exercise.
14 CHAPTER 1. CURVES

Figure 1.4: Different Parametrizations of the same curve. The curve is drawn in
green, the ticks are the points on the curve with the parameter-values written
next to them. In (a) you see a typical non-special parametrization (i.e the ”t”
, in (b) you find the curve parameterized by the arc-length (s). It is intuitively
clear, why the parametrization is not something geometrically interesting. The
real curve (green line) exists, independent of the ticks. In (c) you find another
parametrization by the arc-length, except with a different choice of reference
point on the curve.

? dγ
τ (t) = (1.7)
dt
A bit of thought however, reveals that this cannot be true. Why? Well, it
is not independent of parametrization. Imagine, for example, you were to go
twice as fast along the curve. Then your velocity vector (=tangent vector in
this example) would be, twice as big at every point. But if we want the tangent
vector to be something fundamentally independent of the parametrization, then
equation 1.7 cannot be the correct definition of the tangent vector.
How can we fix this? Well, look at figure 1.5. It shows the same curve,
parameterized in three different ways, with the ”fake” tangent vectors (from
equation 1.7 drawn in. The thing that should jump at you is that, while the
length of the vectors does change, the direction does not 3 . The tangent vector
how we defined it is not the geometrically real thing, rather the unit tangent
vector is, which is exactly how we choose to define it below.

Definition 1.3.1 (tangent vector of a curve). We define the tangent vector τ

3 At least to the precision of my drawing skills
1.3. GEOMETRIC QUANTITIES 15

Figure 1.5: The ”fake” tangent vectors from equation 1.7 for different
parametrizations of the same curve (green). In (a) you see a random
parametrization (black ticks) and its ”fake” tangent vector (blue) from equation
1.7. In (b) you have the same situation, only that this time you go twice as fast
along the curve. Notice that the vectors (the physically drawn arrows) change.
In (c) you have the same thing, but this time parameterized with arc-length.

of a curve γ : t ∈ I → RN to be the vector:

dγ/dt
τ (t) = (1.8)
|dγ/dt|
If we parameterize by the arc-length, then the formula for the tangent vector
becomes:
dγ
τ (s) = (1.9)
ds
dγ
since ds = 1.

In this sense, we get something geometric, independent of the parametriza-

tion. You can also think of this as us choosing the tangent vector to be the one
from figure1.5(c)
Note 2. We abused notation a bit. We write γ(s) instead of β(s), since, as we
already mentioned, we only really care about the image of those, and they are
16 CHAPTER 1. CURVES

the same, and it avoids cluttered notation. We also write dγ dβ

ds for ds for the same
reason. By the chain rule, we get ds = dt ds , which we also write as dγ
dβ dγ dg dt
dt ds , to
avoid introducing another symbol,g, since it is just the function that expresses
the parameter t in terms of s.

1.3.2 The curvature vector

We now come to the curvature vector. It is the fundamental object that de-
scribes how much the tangent vector of the curve changes. Look at, for example,
figure 1.5(c). It depicts the tangent vector for the curve, which is parameterized
by its arc-length. This vector does not change it’s length (it is per definition of
unit length), but it does rotate as you follow along the curve. Notice also, that
the more the tangent vector rotates, the more ”curved”4 the curve is. That’s
where the name comes from.

Definition 1.3.2 (The Curvature Vector of a Curve). Let γ : s ∈ I → RN be

a regular curve, parameterized by the arc-length. Then we define the curvature
vector κ to be:
dτ d2 γ
κs = = 2 (1.10)
ds ds
It is clear, that, because s is independent of any sort of parametrization, dτ
ds
is too.
Figure 1.6 shows a curve with the curvature vector drawn in. Notice that
the curvature vector seems to be orthogonal to the tangent vector5 . This turns
out to be true, universally, as we will now prove.

Lemma 1.3.1 (κ ⊥ τ ). The curvature vector κ is orthogonal to the tangent

vector τ .

Proof. The proof is strikingly simple. We know that the length of τ is set to
d
one. Therefore ⟨τ, τ ⟩ = 1 and ds ⟨τ, τ ⟩ = 0 since the length (and therefore the
scalar product) doesn’t change along the trajectory. We can use the product
rule:
d dτ
0= ⟨τ, τ ⟩ = 2⟨ , τ ⟩ = 2⟨κ, τ ⟩ (1.11)
ds ds
Therefore, the the scalar product of the two vectors is 0, i.e they are orthogonal,
as claimed.

This is something physics students are very familiar with. The situation is
very analogous to the trajectory of a particle. The speed of the particle doesn’t
change, so the only direction the acceleration (= curvature vector) can have is
perpendicular to the curve.
4 At
least in the intuitive sense, for well-behaving curves.
5 Thephysics students among you might find this very similar to how in physics we some-
times separate acceleration into a parallel and perpendicular part, the former changing the
speed, the latter curving the trajectory. Since here we don’t change the speed, only the curving
part is left.
1.3. GEOMETRIC QUANTITIES 17

Figure 1.6: A curve with τ and κ drawn in. Notice that κ is orthogonal to τ .

Note 3. We want to make a quick check on the units of all the quantities that
we described so far. Let’s assume that our RN holds some sort of length unit,
like the cm, which we will write as [L]. Let’s also assume the parameter of
our parametrization has the units of time, like sec, which we denote [T ]. Then
both γ and s have units [L], so the tangent vector dγ ds has units of [L]/[L] = 1
and is unit-less. This is something we want explicitly, as the geometric object
should not be dependant on the parametrization, which means it should also be
independent of the unit of the parametrization [T ]. The ”fake” tangent vector
we defined before has, on the other hand. units of [L]/[T ].
2
The curvature vector ddsγ2 has units of [L]/[L]2 = 1/[L].
Until now, we have only given a formula for the curvature vector in the arc-
length-parametrization. We will now write down the formula for the curvature
vector with any parametrization.
Lemma 1.3.2 (Curvature Vector in arbitrary Parametrization). Let γ : t ∈
dγ/dt
I → RN be any curve and τ (t) = γt (t) = |dγ/dt| the tangent vector. Then the
curvature vector κ(t) can be written as6 :
 
1 γt γt
κ= 2 γtt − ⟨γtt , ⟩ (1.12)
|γt | |γt | |γt |
d2 γ
where γtt is dt2 .

Before we go on to prove this, we first want to talk about what each part of
the equation means.
6 If you already have some experience of Differential Geometry or you are rereading this after

already learning further chapters, you might notice how this is the the covariant derivative of
the tangent vector
18 CHAPTER 1. CURVES

d2 γ
We know that κ = ds2 and therefore expect it to have something to do with
d2 γ
dt2 . This turns out to be the case, the first term is indeed γtt . But there is a
correction term of −⟨γt , |γγtt | ⟩ |γγtt | , which has a nice geometric explanation.
It projects γtt onto the normal plane of the tangent vector. See Figure 1.7
for a visual example. After we have projected γtt onto the normal plane, we
2
still divide it by |γt | . You can see it as just a factor that makes sure that the
units work out.
We can see this simply by comparing units. The part that projects γtt onto
the Normal plane has the same unit as γtt , so we can just look at γtt . (Because
2
we add them. That doesn’t change the units.) The unit of γtt = ddt2γ are clearly
[L]/[T ]2 , while the unit of κ is 1/[L], as we saw above. Therefore, to get a
2
consistent formula, we need something that has units of [T ]2 /[L]2 . 1/ |γt | is
exactly a factor like that.

Note 4. We call the normal plane a plane, even though that is technically only
correct if we have a curve in R3 . In R2 it is a line, in R4 a hyperplane and in
general an (N − 1)-dimensional vector-space.

Figure 1.7: A curve with τ and κ drawn in, as well as γtt . Because we move
along the curve faster and faster (the ticks are more spread out), γtt has a
component in the ”forward” direction, which we cancel out in equation 1.12.
2
The vector is still too long though, which is why we need to divide by |γt | .
1.4. CURVES IN R2 19

Proof. We now prove equation 1.12. The proof consist in its most basic form just
of taking the definition of κ in the arc-length-parametrization and switching to
the t-parametrization, using the normal rules of derivatives (chain rule / product
rule). We start with the chain rule.
dτ dt dτ
κ= = (1.13)
ds ds dt
Rt
where by dsdt
we of course mean dg
ds where g = f
−1
and f (t) = t0
dγ
dt dt.
Therefore:
 −1  −1
dt dg df dγ 1
= = = = = 1/ |γt | (1.14)
ds ds dt dt |dγ/dt|

If we insert the definition of τ in the t-parametrization we get:

dt dτ 1 d γt
κ= = (1.15)
ds dt |γt | dt |γt |
d|γt |
Now we need to use the quotient rule and the fact7 that dt = ⟨γtt , |γγtt | ⟩.

1 d γt
κ= (1.16)
|γt | dt |γt |
d|γ |
1 (γtt |γt | − γt ( dtt )
= 2 (1.17)
|γt | |γt |
1 (γtt |γt | − γt ⟨γtt , γt / |γt |⟩
= 2 (1.18)
|γt | |γt |
 
1 γt γt
= 2 γtt − ⟨γtt , ⟩ (1.19)
|γt | |γt | |γt |

And we get the result as promised.

1.4 Curves in R2
We have, by now, defined exactly what we mean by a curve, seen the concept of
what sort of object is geometric, and defined a few of these, like the arc-length,
tangent and curvature vectors. We will now use all of these concepts to describe
curves in the two dimensional plane.
The main idea that makes this a lot simpler, is that the curvature vector κ
reduces to a number. This is because the direction of the curvature is always
predetermined in two dimensions by the direction of the tangent vector.
To see this, we note that, as we showed before, the curvature vector κ lies in
the normal ”plane” of the tangent vector, which in two dimensions means that
7 You should recognize this from Calculus II, given maybe in a different notation: dr/dt =

x/dt = ⃗xr d⃗
(∇r) ∗ d⃗ x
dt
20 CHAPTER 1. CURVES

it lies on a straight line perpendicular to τ . Therefore, we only need to specify

one number8 to determine the curvature vector.

Figure 1.8: A curve with its tangent, curvature and normal vectors drawn in
at a point on the curve. As you see, the curvature vector is just some number
times the normal vector. Note however, that k is not just the absolute value of
κ, since it can also be the negative of its length, if it points in the other direction

Let’s say we are at a point on a curve, like the one drawn in figure 1.8. We
can construct a right handed basis of R2 at that point by taking τ as our first
basis vector, and the vector that one gets if one rotates τ by 90 deg (in the
positive sense.), which we will call N . Since τ is of unit length and we get N
by rotating τ by 90 deg, this is an orthonormal basis. (One that is right hand
sided.) Notice that it immediately follows that:

κ = kN (1.20)
for some k ∈ R, because we know that κ and τ are orthogonal. We call this k the
curvature scalar. It is an important quantity in differential geometry, and we
will find its equivalents for different geometric objects throughout the subject.

Example 1.4.1. Our first example is the simplest curve that is not a straight
line (because a straight line, of course, has no curvature9 ),which is a circle of
radius R.
The curvature of that circle is

k = 1/R (1.21)
8 On each point of the curve
9 If you don’t immediately believe this, convince yourself of it.
1.4. CURVES IN R2 21

if the circle is parameterized in the counter-clockwise direction. Before you

dive into algebra, let’s consider why this result makes a lot of sense. Take the
few circles in figure 1.9. It is intuitively clear, that the bigger the radius of
the circle, the less curved it gets. As you get progressively bigger radii, the
circles look more and more ”flat” at the top, or in other words, less curved.
The biggest circle (only drawn in partially) is almost flat, and if you were to
draw something like R = 100 you could probably not see the difference anymore
between a straight line and the circle. So the result, that the curvature scalar
is the inverse of this radius makes a lot of sense.
The proof of this claim is a very good exercise in converting parametrizations
and getting geometric information out of coordinates, and we will therefore leave
it as an exercise.

Figure 1.9: A few circles with different radii, with their respective τ, κ, N drawn
at the point (0, R) of each curve. The bigger the circle, the less curved it is, as
reflected by the formula k = 1/R.

1.4.1 The main interpretations of the curvature scalar

The curvature scalar has a lot of interpretations. Let’s first state them, then
discuss their consequences.
Proposition 1.4.1 (Interpretations of the curvature scalar). As always, let γ
be a two dimensional curve, with all the properties we already discussed. Then
the curvature scalar has the following interpretations:
22 CHAPTER 1. CURVES

1. The curvature scalar is the rate of change of the angle the tangent vector
makes with the x axis. Mathematically, let θ = arctan ττ12 (s)
(s)
be exactly
that angle Then:
dθ
k= (1.22)
ds
2. The absolute value of the curvature scalar k tells us the radius of the
osculating circle, which is the distinct circle, that agrees with the curve
up to order two.
1
|k(s)| = (1.23)
R(s)
where R(s) is the radius of that circle at the point of the curve whose
parameter-value is s.
The first interpretation of the curvature scalar should make a lot of sense
intuitively. We know that the tangent vector cannot change its length, since per
construction it is of unit length. Therefore the only thing that can really change
is the direction, i.e the angle it makes with the x-axis. This, along with the fact
that the curvature vector describes how the tangent vector changes, makes the
first part of the proposition rather intuitive. See figure 1.10 for a visualisation.

Figure 1.10: A curve, with its tangent vectors drawn in, and a table that shows
how the tangent vector rotates.

The proof is not to complicated, you just need to derive θ(s) and remember
1
that (1) the derivative of arctan(x) is 1+x 2 and (2) the normal vector in terms

of the components of τ is (−τ2 , τ1 ).

1.4. CURVES IN R2 23

Proof of the first interpretation. As we said, you only need to derive θ. Let’s
start:
 
dθ d τ2
= arctan (1.24)
ds ds τ1
 
d(arctan(x)) d τ2
= (1.25)
dx ds τ1
1 τ˙2 τ1 − τ2 τ˙1
= (1.26)
1 + x2 τ12
1 τ˙2 τ1 − τ2 τ˙1
= (1.27)
τ2
1 + 22 τ12
τ1
1
= 2 ⟨(τ˙1 , τ˙2 ), (−τ2 , τ1 )⟩ (1.28)
τ1 + τ22
1
= ⟨κ, N ⟩ (1.29)
1
=k (1.30)

The factor in the fraction is one because it’s the square of the length of τ , which
is one.

Now, what about the second interpretation? Well, you can imagine a circle,
going along the curve, that locally looks like the curve. (The curve tries to be as
similar to the circle as possible, but because the radius of the osculating circle
changes with s, it doesn’t become a circle.)
Figure 1.11 gives a picture of a curve and it’s osculating circles at different
points of the curve. As you hopefully agree with, the bigger the radius of the
circle, the more straight the curve will be at that point (as both of them agree
to order two so they locally behave quite similarly.) Therefore we expect that
the second interpretation is correct, that is, the curvature scalar is inverse to
the radius of the osculating circle.

Proof of the second interpretation. We will not prove this, as it is quite simple,
but we will sketch a proof. The osculating circle agrees with γ up to order
two. Therefore, we can expect that the second derivatives (i.e the k’s) agree
for the curve and the osculating circle (which we can see as a second curve.) at
that point. We know that at that point, the circle has kcircle = 1/Rcircle , and
therefore this should also be true for the first curve. The only missing parts of
the proof are (1) the proof that an osculating circle exists, which it does10 , and
a more rigorous way of presenting the above argument.

10 A straight line is a circle of infinite radius in many aspects of geometry, this is also

true here, if the curve is locally straight at a point, the radius of it’s osculating circle will
blow up and the circle will become as straight line, but the theorem will still hold. For the
mathematicians: 1/∞ = 0 in this case.
24 CHAPTER 1. CURVES

Figure 1.11: A curve with its osculating circle drawn in at a few places along the
curve. (The biggest one only partially drawn in) It is clear that the bigger the
osculating circle is, the straighter the curve will be, which gives the connection
to the curvature scalar.

There is actually also a third interpretation of the curvature scalar, for a

special kind of curve. Let’s say, that the curve is the graph of a function y = u(x)
that assigns a y-value to every x-value, like the one in figure 1.12. Consider the
second derivative of u. Can we connect it to k, which is also, a second derivative?
Yes. In-fact, this is a very common theme that will accompany you throughout
differential geometry. Curvature is a second derivative and a second derivative
is curvature in some sense11 . The relationship between k and uxx is not trivial
however. k ̸= uxx ! The actual relationship is:
uxx
k= 3/2
(1.31)
(1 + u2x )
We have to compensate, because x is not s. The proof of this is quite simple,
if quite long. The basic strategy is, as with many of these proofs, differentiate
until you get to where you want to be.
Proof. Let’s start, by collecting different terms that might be useful. Firstly,
γ(x) = (x, u(x)) and therefore:

γx = (1, ux ) (1.32)

1/2
|γx | = 1 + u2x (1.33)
γx (1, ux )
τ= = 1/2
(1.34)
|γx | (1 + u2x )
(−ux , 1)
N= 1/2
(1.35)
(1 + u2x )
11 Conditions apply, as always.
1.4. CURVES IN R2 25

Figure 1.12: A graph of a function as a curve.

The first three should be rather clear, coming straight from the definition. The
last one comes from the fact that N is just τ , but rotated by 90 deg, which means
we switch the two entries of the vector and put a minus in-front of the first one12
We can now just use the definition of κ and the chain rule and calculate until
we get there.

dx dτ
κ= (1.36)
ds dx
 −1
dx ds −1
= = |γx | (1.37)
ds dx
1 dτ
→κ= (1.38)
|γx | dx
1 d γx
= (1.39)
|γx | dx |γx |

Before we continue, there is something to note about what we already found.

Inside the derivative, we already normalize once, and then again outside of the
derivative. In this sense, κ is a normalized version of a second derivative.

1 d (1, ux )
... = (1.40)
|γx | dx |γx |
 
1 (0, uxx ) d 1
= − (1, ux ) (1.41)
|γx | |γx | dx |γx |

(We used the product rule.) Now, we know that k = ⟨κ, N ⟩. The last term in
the equation above for k is proportional to (1, ux ) which is proportional to τ ,
12 If this is not clear to you, try it out with the rotation matrix of positive 90 deg. You’ll

see that this is correct.

26 CHAPTER 1. CURVES

which means that when we form the scalar product to get k, it drops out, since
τ is orthogonal (per construction) to N . We get:

k = ⟨κ, N ⟩ (1.42)
1 (0, uxx ) (−ux , 1)
=⟨ , ⟩ (1.43)
|γx | |γx | |γx |
uxx uxx
= 3 = 3/2
(1.44)
|γx | (1 + u2x )

Here, we used that that aforementioned second term is orthogonal to N and left
it out. At the end we just collected terms.

Now, after seeing how much manual computation this took, you might be
a bit astounded as to why. The reason is the same reason why anytime you
actually want to compute something in differential geometry it usually turns
into a mess of derivatives. We are turning something fundamentally coordinate-
based13 (uxx ) into something geometric (k). Coordinate-based objects usually
have, as you might imagine, a lot of information in them that is only related to
the choice of our coordinates and we have to filter that information out when
we do the conversion. This is the reason why there is so much to compute, even
if the steps aren’t too complicated.

1.4.2 Curvature determines curve up to rigid motion

There is one more thing we want to discuss about the curvature scalar before
we move on. We want to talk about how much the curvature (scalar) actually
tells us about a curve, or to what degree it determines the curve, in the sense
that you have a function k(s) which you say is the curvature scalar of the curve,
and ask yourself how much freedom you still have left. It will turn out that the
curvature determines the curve, up to it’s position at s = 0 and the angle of the
tangent vector at that point. This mirrors Newton’s law a lot, the reason being
that both are differential equations of second order14 . You can also see this as
having the freedom to preform any rigid motion (a rotation or translation, but
no mirroring or stretching) and still getting a curve with the same curvature
scalar. You can look at figure 1.13 for an example.

Theorem 1.4.1 (Curvature determines curve up to a rigid motion). The cur-

vature k(s) of a curve determines that curve up to a rigid motion.

Proof. We will, again, not prove this rigorously. We will give you a sketch, from
which it should be clear that a proof can be constructed.
The basic idea is to integrate twice.
13 To make this discussion more general, we write coordinate-based, even though right now

it’s just a parametrization. You can see a parametrization as coordinates on the curve.
14 The only difference to Newton’s law is that the speed (with respect to s) can’t change for

a curve, that is why we don’t get to pick any tangent vector.

1.4. CURVES IN R2 27

Figure 1.13: You can preform a rigid motion and not change anything about
the curvature of the curve.

Firstly, integrate the equation:

dθ
k(s) = (1.45)
ds
to get: Z s
θ(s) = θ(0) + k(s) ds′ (1.46)
s0

where θ(0) is a constant we can choose freely. The next step is to integrate the
equation:
dγ
(s) = τ (s) = eiθ(s) (1.47)
ds
and get: Z s
′
γ(s) = γ0 + eiθ(s ) ds′ (1.48)
s0

giving us yet another constant γ0 , which we can choose freely. To get a more
rigorous proof, you would need to show that these are the solutions (just dif-
ferentiate them) and that these are the only solutions (use a theorem from
calculus.)

1.4.3 The interaction between global and local

Before we close the subject of curves in R2 , we want to talk about a general
theme of differential geometry, that shows up throughout the subject, and apply
it to curves in R2 . The theme is the interaction between global and local prop-
erties of geometric objects. The idea is that local properties (like curvature),
28 CHAPTER 1. CURVES

Figure 1.14: A picture of the theorem.

which only feel a tiny piece of the object (around any point), give constrains on
(or even determine) global properties. Local things are things that only need
a small surrounding of a point to be defined at that point, like the curvature
vector, or later the metric. Global things are typically integral quantities, which
often are related to topology. We will give an example (without proof) of a the-
orem that follows along the line of this idea, but before we do that, we need to
define two further restrictions, that we will need to make (and will from now on
assume that the curves we usually work with will usually obey.)

Definition 1.4.1 (more restrictions, simple curves).

1. An N -dimensional smooth curve γ is called simple, if it has no self-

intersections, i.e if γ(s) = γ(t) then s = t. The one exception we make
are the edges, as we don’t want to call a closed curve, like a circle, self-
intersecting, just because it returns back to it’s beginning.

2. Similarly, a curve is closed if it is defined on an interval [a, b] and γ(a) =

γ(b)

3. If we are working with closed curves, we will want them to have the (nice)
property that, if we extend them periodically to a curve from R → RN ,
they are smooth. This is to avoid annoying situations like the one in figure
1.15

With these restrictions, we can state the theorem.

Theorem 1.4.2. Let γ be a two dimensional regular closed curve that obeys
1.4. CURVES IN R2 29

Figure 1.15: A problem case of a closed curve, for which the tangent vector at
the beginning is not the same as the tangent vector at the end. We want to avoid
this, so we just take these kinds of curves (and ones where higher derivatives
don’t match up) out of the set of curves we consider
30 CHAPTER 1. CURVES

the above restriction. Then: Z

kds = 2πn (1.49)
γ

for some n ∈ Z
The integral quantity is the global quantity we mentioned before, while k
Rb
is the curvature scalar, which is a local quantity. Since γ k ds = a dθ
R
ds ds, the
global quantity is just the total angle (with signs) by which the tangent vector
rotated, a profoundly global thing.
It makes sense that this would be so. If the curved is closed (and is smooth
on the edge, if made periodic), then the angle τ has to rotate by must be some
multiple of a whole rotation, since it ends up where it started.

Proposition 1.4.2. If the curve is simple, n = ±1

This proposition tells us that a non-intersecting curve’s τ can only turn once
in total. See the examples in figure 1.16

Figure 1.16: Two simple curves and the graph that shows by how much the
tangent vector rotated.