Curvature Tensor (other)
In mathematics, curvature is any of several strongly related concepts in geometry that intuitively measure the amount by which a curve deviates from being a straight line or by which a Surface (mathematics), surface deviates from being a plane (geometry), plane. If a curve or surface is contained in a larger space, curvature can be defined ''extrinsically'' relative to the ambient space. Curvature of Riemannian manifolds of dimension at least two can be defined ''intrinsically'' without reference to a larger space. For curves, the canonical example is that of a circle, which has a curvature equal to the Multiplicative inverse, 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 qua ...
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