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Affine Curvature
Special affine curvature, also known as the equiaffine curvature or affine curvature, is a particular type of curvature that is defined on a plane curve that remains unchanged under a special affine transformation (an affine transformation that preserves area). The curves of constant equiaffine curvature are precisely all non-singular plane conics. Those with are ellipses, those with are parabolae, and those with are hyperbolae. The usual Euclidean curvature of a curve at a point is the curvature of its osculating circle, the unique circle making second order contact (having three point contact) with the curve at the point. In the same way, the special affine curvature of a curve at a point is the special affine curvature of its hyperosculating conic, which is the unique conic making fourth order contact (having five point contact) with the curve at . In other words it is the limiting position of the (unique) conic through and four points on the curve, as each of the poi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curvature
In mathematics, curvature is any of several strongly related concepts in geometry. Intuitively, the curvature is the amount by which a curve deviates from being a straight line, or a surface deviates from being a plane. 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 quantity, that is, it is expressed by a single real number. For surfaces (and, more generally for higher-dimensional manifolds), that are embedded in a Euclidean space, the concept of curvature is more complex, as it depends on the choice of a direction on the surface or man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hyperbolic Function
In mathematics, hyperbolic functions are analogues of the ordinary trigonometric functions, but defined using the hyperbola rather than the circle. Just as the points form a circle with a unit radius, the points form the right half of the unit hyperbola. Also, similarly to how the derivatives of and are and respectively, the derivatives of and are and respectively. Hyperbolic functions occur in the calculations of angles and distances in hyperbolic geometry. They also occur in the solutions of many linear differential equations (such as the equation defining a catenary), cubic equations, and Laplace's equation in Cartesian coordinates. Laplace's equations are important in many areas of physics, including electromagnetic theory, heat transfer, fluid dynamics, and special relativity. The basic hyperbolic functions are: * hyperbolic sine "" (), * hyperbolic cosine "" (),''Collins Concise Dictionary'', p. 328 from which are derived: * hyperbolic tangent "" (), * hyp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Power Law
In statistics, a power law is a Function (mathematics), functional relationship between two quantities, where a Relative change and difference, relative change in one quantity results in a proportional relative change in the other quantity, independent of the initial size of those quantities: one quantity varies as a Exponentiation, power of another. For instance, considering the area of a square in terms of the length of its side, if the length is doubled, the area is multiplied by a factor of four. Empirical examples The distributions of a wide variety of physical, biological, and man-made phenomena approximately follow a power law over a wide range of magnitudes: these include the sizes of craters on the moon and of solar flares, the foraging pattern of various species, the sizes of activity patterns of neuronal populations, the frequencies of words in most languages, frequencies of family names, the species richness in clades of organisms, the sizes of power outages, volcanic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frobenius Integration Theorem
In mathematics, Frobenius' theorem gives necessary and sufficient conditions for finding a maximal set of independent solutions of an overdetermined system of first-order homogeneous linear partial differential equations. In modern geometric terms, given a family of vector fields, the theorem gives necessary and sufficient integrability conditions for the existence of a foliation by maximal integral manifolds whose tangent bundles are spanned by the given vector fields. The theorem generalizes the existence theorem for ordinary differential equations, which guarantees that a single vector field always gives rise to integral curves; Frobenius gives compatibility conditions under which the integral curves of ''r'' vector fields mesh into coordinate grids on ''r''-dimensional integral manifolds. The theorem is foundational in differential topology and calculus on manifolds. Introduction In its most elementary form, the theorem addresses the problem of finding a maximal set o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homogeneity Operator
Homogeneity and heterogeneity are concepts often used in the sciences and statistics relating to the uniformity of a substance or organism. A material or image that is homogeneous is uniform in composition or character (i.e. color, shape, size, weight, height, distribution, texture, language, income, disease, temperature, radioactivity, architectural design, etc.); one that is heterogeneous is distinctly nonuniform in at least one of these qualities. Heterogeneous Mixtures, in chemistry, is where certain elements are unwillingly combined and, when given the option, will separate. Etymology and spelling The words ''homogeneous'' and ''heterogeneous'' come from Medieval Latin ''homogeneus'' and ''heterogeneus'', from Ancient Greek ὁμογενής (''homogenēs'') and ἑτερογενής (''heterogenēs''), from ὁμός (''homos'', “same”) and ἕτερος (''heteros'', “other, another, different”) respectively, followed by γένος (''genos'', “kind”); -o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lie Derivative
In differential geometry, the Lie derivative ( ), named after Sophus Lie by Władysław Ślebodziński, evaluates the change of a tensor field (including scalar functions, vector fields and one-forms), along the flow defined by another vector field. This change is coordinate invariant and therefore the Lie derivative is defined on any differentiable manifold. Functions, tensor fields and forms can be differentiated with respect to a vector field. If ''T'' is a tensor field and ''X'' is a vector field, then the Lie derivative of ''T'' with respect to ''X'' is denoted \mathcal_X(T). The differential operator T \mapsto \mathcal_X(T) is a derivation of the algebra of tensor fields of the underlying manifold. The Lie derivative commutes with contraction and the exterior derivative on differential forms. Although there are many concepts of taking a derivative in differential geometry, they all agree when the expression being differentiated is a function or scalar field. Thus in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jet (mathematics)
In mathematics, the jet is an operation that takes a differentiable function ''f'' and produces a polynomial, the truncated Taylor polynomial of ''f'', at each point of its domain. Although this is the definition of a jet, the theory of jets regards these polynomials as being abstract polynomials rather than polynomial functions. This article first explores the notion of a jet of a real valued function in one real variable, followed by a discussion of generalizations to several real variables. It then gives a rigorous construction of jets and jet spaces between Euclidean spaces. It concludes with a description of jets between manifolds, and how these jets can be constructed intrinsically. In this more general context, it summarizes some of the applications of jets to differential geometry and the theory of differential equations. Jets of functions between Euclidean spaces Before giving a rigorous definition of a jet, it is useful to examine some special cases. One-dimensional cas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contact Structure
In mathematics, contact geometry is the study of a geometric structure on smooth manifolds given by a hyperplane distribution in the tangent bundle satisfying a condition called 'complete non-integrability'. Equivalently, such a distribution may be given (at least locally) as the kernel of a differential one-form, and the non-integrability condition translates into a maximal non-degeneracy condition on the form. These conditions are opposite to two equivalent conditions for ' complete integrability' of a hyperplane distribution, i.e. that it be tangent to a codimension one foliation on the manifold, whose equivalence is the content of the Frobenius theorem. Contact geometry is in many ways an odd-dimensional counterpart of symplectic geometry, a structure on certain even-dimensional manifolds. Both contact and symplectic geometry are motivated by the mathematical formalism of classical mechanics, where one can consider either the even-dimensional phase space of a mechanical sys ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lie Algebra
In mathematics, a Lie algebra (pronounced ) is a vector space \mathfrak g together with an Binary operation, operation called the Lie bracket, an Alternating multilinear map, alternating bilinear map \mathfrak g \times \mathfrak g \rightarrow \mathfrak g, that satisfies the Jacobi identity. The Lie bracket of two vectors x and y is denoted [x,y]. The vector space \mathfrak g together with this operation is a non-associative algebra, meaning that the Lie bracket is not necessarily associative property, associative. Lie algebras are closely related to Lie groups, which are group (mathematics), groups that are also smooth manifolds: any Lie group gives rise to a Lie algebra, which is its tangent space at the identity. Conversely, to any finite-dimensional Lie algebra over real or complex numbers, there is a corresponding connected space, connected Lie group unique up to finite coverings (Lie's third theorem). This Lie group–Lie algebra correspondence, correspondence allows one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Invariant Theory
Invariant theory is a branch of abstract algebra dealing with actions of groups on algebraic varieties, such as vector spaces, from the point of view of their effect on functions. Classically, the theory dealt with the question of explicit description of polynomial functions that do not change, or are ''invariant'', under the transformations from a given linear group. For example, if we consider the action of the special linear group ''SLn'' on the space of ''n'' by ''n'' matrices by left multiplication, then the determinant is an invariant of this action because the determinant of ''A X'' equals the determinant of ''X'', when ''A'' is in ''SLn''. Introduction Let G be a group, and V a finite-dimensional vector space over a field k (which in classical invariant theory was usually assumed to be the complex numbers). A representation of G in V is a group homomorphism \pi:G \to GL(V), which induces a group action of G on V. If k /math> is the space of polynomial functions on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darboux Derivative
The Darboux derivative of a map between a manifold and a Lie group is a variant of the standard derivative. It is arguably a more natural generalization of the single-variable derivative. It allows a generalization of the single-variable fundamental theorem of calculus to higher dimensions, in a different vein than the generalization that is Stokes' theorem. Formal definition Let G be a Lie group, and let \mathfrak be its Lie algebra. The Maurer-Cartan form, \omega_G, is the smooth \mathfrak-valued 1-form on G (cf. Lie algebra valued form) defined by :\omega_G(X_g) = (T_g L_g)^ X_g for all g \in G and X_g \in T_g G. Here L_g denotes left multiplication by the element g \in G and T_g L_g is its derivative at g. Let f:M \to G be a smooth function between a smooth manifold M and G. Then the Darboux derivative of f is the smooth \mathfrak-valued 1-form :\omega_f := f^* \omega_G, the pullback of \omega_G by f. The map f is called an integral or primitive of \omega_f. More nat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
