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Sectional Curvature
In Riemannian geometry, the sectional curvature is one of the ways to describe the curvature of Riemannian manifolds. The sectional curvature ''K''(σ''p'') depends on a two-dimensional linear subspace σ''p'' of the tangent space at a point ''p'' of the manifold. It can be defined geometrically as the Gaussian curvature of the surface which has the plane σ''p'' as a tangent plane at ''p'', obtained from geodesics which start at ''p'' in the directions of σ''p'' (in other words, the image of σ''p'' under the exponential map at ''p''). The sectional curvature is a real-valued function on the 2-Grassmannian bundle over the manifold. The sectional curvature determines the curvature tensor completely. Definition Given a Riemannian manifold and two linearly independent tangent vectors at the same point, ''u'' and ''v'', we can define :K(u,v)= Here ''R'' is the Riemann curvature tensor, defined here by the convention R(u,v)w=\nabla_u\nabla_vw-\nabla_v\n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riemannian Geometry
Riemannian geometry is the branch of differential geometry that studies Riemannian manifolds, smooth manifolds with a ''Riemannian metric'', i.e. with an inner product on the tangent space at each point that varies smoothly from point to point. This gives, in particular, local notions of angle, length of curves, surface area and volume. From those, some other global quantities can be derived by integrating local contributions. Riemannian geometry originated with the vision of Bernhard Riemann expressed in his inaugural lecture "''Ueber die Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen''" ("On the Hypotheses on which Geometry is Based.") It is a very broad and abstract generalization of the differential geometry of surfaces in R3. Development of Riemannian geometry resulted in synthesis of diverse results concerning the geometry of surfaces and the behavior of geodesics on them, with techniques that can be applied to the study of differentiable manifolds of higher dimensio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
N-sphere
In mathematics, an -sphere or a hypersphere is a topological space that is homeomorphic to a ''standard'' -''sphere'', which is the set of points in -dimensional Euclidean space that are situated at a constant distance from a fixed point, called the ''center''. It is the generalization of an ordinary sphere in the ordinary three-dimensional space. The "radius" of a sphere is the constant distance of its points to the center. When the sphere has unit radius, it is usual to call it the unit -sphere or simply the -sphere for brevity. In terms of the standard norm, the -sphere is defined as : S^n = \left\ , and an -sphere of radius can be defined as : S^n(r) = \left\ . The dimension of -sphere is , and must not be confused with the dimension of the Euclidean space in which it is naturally embedded. An -sphere is the surface or boundary of an -dimensional ball. In particular: *the pair of points at the ends of a (one-dimensional) line segment is a 0-sphere, *a circle, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Universal Cover
A covering of a topological space X is a continuous map \pi : E \rightarrow X with special properties. Definition Let X be a topological space. A covering of X is a continuous map : \pi : E \rightarrow X such that there exists a discrete space D and for every x \in X an open neighborhood U \subset X, such that \pi^(U)= \displaystyle \bigsqcup_ V_d and \pi, _:V_d \rightarrow U is a homeomorphism for every d \in D . Often, the notion of a covering is used for the covering space E as well as for the map \pi : E \rightarrow X. The open sets V_ are called sheets, which are uniquely determined up to a homeomorphism if U is connected. For each x \in X the discrete subset \pi^(x) is called the fiber of x. The degree of a covering is the cardinality of the space D. If E is path-connected, then the covering \pi : E \rightarrow X is denoted as a path-connected covering. Examples * For every topological space X there exists the covering \pi:X \rightarrow X with \pi(x)=x, which is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Complete Space
In mathematical analysis, a metric space is called complete (or a Cauchy space) if every Cauchy sequence of points in has a limit that is also in . Intuitively, a space is complete if there are no "points missing" from it (inside or at the boundary). For instance, the set of rational numbers is not complete, because e.g. \sqrt is "missing" from it, even though one can construct a Cauchy sequence of rational numbers that converges to it (see further examples below). It is always possible to "fill all the holes", leading to the ''completion'' of a given space, as explained below. Definition Cauchy sequence A sequence x_1, x_2, x_3, \ldots in a metric space (X, d) is called Cauchy if for every positive real number r > 0 there is a positive integer N such that for all positive integers m, n > N, d\left(x_m, x_n\right) < r. Complete space A metric space is complete if any of the following equivalent conditions are satisfied: :#Every [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cartan–Hadamard Theorem
In mathematics, the Cartan–Hadamard theorem is a statement in Riemannian geometry concerning the structure of complete Riemannian manifolds of non-positive sectional curvature. The theorem states that the universal cover of such a manifold is diffeomorphic to a Euclidean space via the exponential map at any point. It was first proved by Hans Carl Friedrich von Mangoldt for surfaces in 1881, and independently by Jacques Hadamard in 1898. Élie Cartan generalized the theorem to Riemannian manifolds in 1928 (; ; ). The theorem was further generalized to a wide class of metric spaces by Mikhail Gromov in 1987; detailed proofs were published by for metric spaces of non-positive curvature and by for general locally convex metric spaces. Riemannian geometry The Cartan–Hadamard theorem in conventional Riemannian geometry asserts that the universal covering space of a connected complete Riemannian manifold of non-positive sectional curvature is diffeomorphic to R''n''. In fac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Élie Cartan
Élie Joseph Cartan (; 9 April 1869 – 6 May 1951) was an influential French mathematician who did fundamental work in the theory of Lie groups, differential systems (coordinate-free geometric formulation of PDEs), and differential geometry. He also made significant contributions to general relativity and indirectly to quantum mechanics. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century. His son Henri Cartan was an influential mathematician working in algebraic topology. Life Élie Cartan was born 9 April 1869 in the village of Dolomieu, Isère to Joseph Cartan (1837–1917) and Anne Cottaz (1841–1927). Joseph Cartan was the village blacksmith; Élie Cartan recalled that his childhood had passed under "blows of the anvil, which started every morning from dawn", and that "his mother, during those rare minutes when she was free from taking care of the children and the house, was working with a spinning-wheel". Élie had an elder sister J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glossary Of Riemannian And Metric Geometry
This is a glossary of some terms used in Riemannian geometry and metric geometry — it doesn't cover the terminology of differential topology. The following articles may also be useful; they either contain specialised vocabulary or provide more detailed expositions of the definitions given below. * Connection * Curvature * Metric space * Riemannian manifold See also: * Glossary of general topology * Glossary of differential geometry and topology * List of differential geometry topics Unless stated otherwise, letters ''X'', ''Y'', ''Z'' below denote metric spaces, ''M'', ''N'' denote Riemannian manifolds, , ''xy'', or , xy, _X denotes the distance between points ''x'' and ''y'' in ''X''. Italic ''word'' denotes a self-reference to this glossary. ''A caveat'': many terms in Riemannian and metric geometry, such as ''convex function'', ''convex set'' and others, do not have exactly the same meaning as in general mathematical usage. __NOTOC__ A Alexandrov space a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comparison Theorem
In mathematics, comparison theorems are theorems whose statement involves comparisons between various mathematical objects of the same type, and often occur in fields such as calculus, differential equations and Riemannian geometry. Differential equations In the theory of differential equations, comparison theorems assert particular properties of solutions of a differential equation (or of a system thereof), provided that an auxiliary equation/inequality (or a system thereof) possesses a certain property. *Chaplygin inequality * Grönwall's inequality, and its various generalizations, provides a comparison principle for the solutions of first-order ordinary differential equations. * Sturm comparison theorem *Aronson and Weinberger used a comparison theorem to characterize solutions to Fisher's equation, a reaction--diffusion equation. * Hille-Wintner comparison theorem Riemannian geometry In Riemannian geometry, it is a traditional name for a number of theorems that compare variou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Distance Function
In mathematics, a metric space is a set together with a notion of ''distance'' between its elements, usually called points. The distance is measured by a function called a metric or distance function. Metric spaces are the most general setting for studying many of the concepts of mathematical analysis and geometry. The most familiar example of a metric space is 3-dimensional Euclidean space with its usual notion of distance. Other well-known examples are a sphere equipped with the angular distance and the hyperbolic plane. A metric may correspond to a metaphorical, rather than physical, notion of distance: for example, the set of 100-character Unicode strings can be equipped with the Hamming distance, which measures the number of characters that need to be changed to get from one string to another. Since they are very general, metric spaces are a tool used in many different branches of mathematics. Many types of mathematical objects have a natural notion of distance and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Complete Space
In mathematical analysis, a metric space is called complete (or a Cauchy space) if every Cauchy sequence of points in has a limit that is also in . Intuitively, a space is complete if there are no "points missing" from it (inside or at the boundary). For instance, the set of rational numbers is not complete, because e.g. \sqrt is "missing" from it, even though one can construct a Cauchy sequence of rational numbers that converges to it (see further examples below). It is always possible to "fill all the holes", leading to the ''completion'' of a given space, as explained below. Definition Cauchy sequence A sequence x_1, x_2, x_3, \ldots in a metric space (X, d) is called Cauchy if for every positive real number r > 0 there is a positive integer N such that for all positive integers m, n > N, d\left(x_m, x_n\right) < r. Complete space A metric space is complete if any of the following equivalent conditions are satisfied: :#Every [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geodesic Triangle
In geometry, a geodesic () is a curve representing in some sense the shortest path ( arc) between two points in a surface, or more generally in a Riemannian manifold. The term also has meaning in any differentiable manifold with a connection. It is a generalization of the notion of a "straight line". The noun '' geodesic'' and the adjective ''geodetic'' come from '' geodesy'', the science of measuring the size and shape of Earth, though many of the underlying principles can be applied to any ellipsoidal geometry. In the original sense, a geodesic was the shortest route between two points on the Earth's surface. For a spherical Earth, it is a segment of a great circle (see also great-circle distance). The term has since been generalized to more abstract mathematical spaces; for example, in graph theory, one might consider a geodesic between two vertices/nodes of a graph. In a Riemannian manifold or submanifold, geodesics are characterised by the property of having vani ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toponogov's Theorem
In the mathematical field of Riemannian geometry, Toponogov's theorem (named after Victor Andreevich Toponogov) is a triangle comparison theorem. It is one of a family of comparison theorems that quantify the assertion that a pair of geodesics emanating from a point ''p'' spread apart more slowly in a region of high curvature than they would in a region of low curvature. Let ''M'' be an ''m''-dimensional Riemannian manifold with sectional curvature ''K'' satisfying K\ge \delta\,. Let ''pqr'' be a geodesic triangle, i.e. a triangle whose sides are geodesics, in ''M'', such that the geodesic ''pq'' is minimal and if δ > ''0'', the length of the side ''pr'' is less than \pi / \sqrt \delta. Let ''p''′''q''′''r''′ be a geodesic triangle in the model space ''M''δ, i.e. the simply connected space of constant curvature In mathematics, constant curvature is a concept from differential geometry. Here, curvature refers to the sectional curvature of a space ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
