THOMAS SWIFT
Abstract. In this paper, we take an in-depth look of various curvature measures for curves and surfaces. We start by defining what curvature is and
how to calculate it for space curves. After reviewing generalized curvature for
curves embedded in spaces of arbitrary dimension, we use the rest of the paper to discuss different curvature measures computed on surfaces, which is the
focus of the paper. In examining surfaces, we first define the first and second
fundamental forms of a surface as they are intimately related to every concept
of curvature defined for surfaces. Using these forms, we describe the normal
curvature of a surface, and briefly mention the geodesic curvature as well. We
then define the principal curvatures both geometrically in terms of the normal
curvature, and algebraically through the shape operator, or Weingarten Map.
Our definitions for the Gaussian and mean curvatures of a surface then directly
come from these principal curvatures. By looking at surfaces which have zero
mean curvature, we quickly overview minimal surfaces. We then conclude the
paper by defining the Ricci curvature tensor for a surface, which is defined in
terms of the Riemann curvature tensor, which is in turn defined in terms of the
Christoffel symbols, which come directly from the surfaces first fundamental
form.
1. Introduction
Curvature is a mathematical concept which has been around for thousands of
years. Curvature is used to relate the amount of bending of an object at each
point on the object, possibly with respect to a given direction depending on the
dimension of the object. The initial objects of study with respect to their curvature
were curves, the simplest such object, being only one-dimensional. The notion of
curvature is very important, as it completely determines a curve, up to rigid motion, as stated in the fundamental theorems of plane and space curves (here, rigid
motion indicates a distant-preserving transformation consisting of translations and
rotations). The origins of the study of curvature come from the Ancient Greeks,
who noticed the difference a line, which doesnt bend at all, and a circle, which has
a constant amount of bending at each of its points. Aristotle expanded upon these
observations by classifying every curve as either straight, circular, or mixed, which
formed the basis for studying curvature. [10]
In the third century B.C., Apollonius of Perga advanced the study of curvature
by studying conic sections and discovering that there is exactly one normal line
at each point of a conic. He also determined procedures for finding the radius
of curvature of a curve, such as by using the method of exhaustion, which paved
the way for later discoveries made by Newton and Huygens, who used remarkably
similar methods to do this calculation. In the fourteenth century, Nicole Oresme,
through drawing graphs, noticed that if two curves are tangent to each other at a
point and one lies inside the other (that is, on the other curves concave side), the
1
THOMAS SWIFT
inner cuve bends more than the outer curve. This is very intutive and easy to see
graphically. Look at the bending of the parabolas y = x2 and y = 2x2 at the origin,
for example, which is shown in Figure 1.1 This observation led him to propose that
the curvature of a circle is simply the multiplicative inverse of its radius. Circa the
year 1600, Johannes Kepler introduced the notion which later became known as
the circle of curvature when he he constructed a circle tangent to a given point of
a curve, which he used to approximate the curve. [10]
Figure 1.1. Here, we see the difference in the amount of bending of the parabols
y = x2 and y = 2x2 at the origin. From pure observation, we notice that the inner
parabola y = 2x2 has the greater degree of bending of the two curves. This can
be verified algebraically, as it has curvature 4 at the origin, while y = x2 only has
curvature 2.
Significant advances in the field of curvature were made with the advent of analytic geometry. Renes Descartes and Pierre de Fermat, two of the first analytic
geometers, devised a way to express a generic curve algebraically. This, of course,
was a highly significant and necessary step, as this algebraic representation was later
needed in order to rigorously describe the curvature of a general curve through calculus. The progress of these mathematicians, however, was greatly hindered by the
lack of the mathematical constat in their analysis. [10]
Calculus was then invented in the late seventeenth century. Calculus, being
founded on the concepts of limits and infinitesimals, was a natural way to descibe
curvature. Since two general curves have different magnitudes of bending at each
of their points, it was necessary to look at an infinitemsimal piece of a curve surrounding one of its points in order to accurately describe the curves curvature at
that point. Calculus was the perfect tool to accomplish this. [10]
Isacc Newton, co-inventor of calculus, began his investigation of curvature by
considering the following elementary facts and observations: the curvature of a
circle is constant and is the multiplicative inverse of its radius, and the largest
circle whch is tangent to a curve at a point and lies on its concave side has the same
curvature as the curve at that point, where the center of this circle is called the
center of curvature. Using infinitesimals, Newton described the center of curvature
at a given point on a curve as the point of intersection of the normals of two
points an infinitesimal distance from the given point on either side of it. Using
this definition, Newton developed a formula for the radius of curvature of a curve
at a point. However, Newtons curvature formula was problematic for points of
inflection. Using calculus, as well as his own observations, Newton saw that curves
behave like lines in the infinitesimally small regions near their inflection points, as
we see in Figure 1.3. However, lines have an infinite radius of curvature, giving these
points on the curve an infinite radius of curvature, and so making the curvature
undefined. Newton also noticed that he could apply his methods of finding extrema
of functions from calculus, by setting the functions derivative equal to 0, to find
the points where the curve bended the most and the least. [10]
Figure 1.3. The graph of an arbitrary curve. We see that the curve behaves like a
straight line at its point of inflection. This graph also illustrates Newtons method
of finding maxima and minima by setting the functions derivative equal to 0, as
we see that the tangent lines at this functions extrema are clearly both horizontal
(have zero slope).
In 1731, Alexis-Claude Clairaut became the first geometer to study the curvature
of space curves, curves embedded in a three-dimensional space. Clairaut studied
these curves by taking DesCartes method of taking these space curves and projecting them onto two perpendicular planes, where the projections could be treated
as simple plane curves. He noticed that space curves have two different curvature
measures at each of their points. The second of these, which is not applicable to
plane curves and is new to space curves, he called the torsion, which measures how
quickly the curves osculating plane changes, which is the plane formed by the unit
tangent and unit normal vectors at a given point. This realization that an object
could have different curvature measures influenced the work of later geometers,
THOMAS SWIFT
n-dimensional manifold. Christoffel is the mathematician for which the Christoffel symbols are named, which are used in defining the Riemann curvature tensor.
This tensor is a collection of scalars which specifies the amount of bending of the
manifold at a given point. For manifolds of higher dimension than two, the Gauss
curvature of the manifold is known as the manifolds sectional curvature. [13, 15]
Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro then introduced Ricci curvature. Ricci developed Ricci
curvature because he noticed that if M is a Riemannian manifold, then M doesnt
have an inherent second fundamental form, and therefore doesnt have have any
prinicpal curvatures or directions which come from the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the matrix reprsenetation of this form, unlike when M is a hypersurface (a
surface of dimension n 1 embedded in a space of dimension n). This was very
problematic. However, he noticed that he could contract the Riemann curvature
tensor (take its trace) to get a two-dimensional tensor which had these nice properties [13]. Ricci curvature has applications to general relativity, where it is a term
in the Einstein field equations, which relate the ricci tensor, the scalar curvature
(contraction of the ricci tensor), and the metric to the Einstein tensor and energymomentum (stress-energy) tensor. [8, 17]. It also is used in the Ricci flow equation
which was introduced by Richard Hamilton. [16]
Ricci flow is an analog of the heat equation, which states that heat moves through
an object until a state of equilibrium is reached in which the temperature, amount
of heat, is constant throughout the body. Similarly, in the case of two-dimensional
manifolds at least, Ricci flow deforms the Riemannian metric of the manifold into
a metric which has constant Ricci curvature. This is known as the uniformization
theorem. In the general case of n-dimensional Riemannian manifolds, Ricci flow is
a process which stretches the metric in the directions where the Ricci curvature is
negative, and contracts it in the directions where the Ricci curvature is positive.
This has the result of increasing and decreasing, respectively, the distance between
points on the manifold. The stretching and contracting of the metric is greater the
higher the magnitude of the Ricci curvature. [12, 16]
2. Curvature of Curves
3
|T 0 (t)|
|r0 (t)|
and
(2)
Rt
Here, the arc length function s(t) of r(t) is defined as s(t) = a |r0 (u)| du, where a is
the point from which we start measuring the arc length. Note that in most cases,
we let a = 0. [5, 14]
THOMAS SWIFT
Figure 2.1. The Frenet Frame of T, N, and B vectors moving along a helix
Example 2.1. Consider the helix in Figure 2.1 which can be parameterized by
r(t) =< cos t, sin t, t >. We want to calculate the Frenet frame for this helix, as well
as its curvature and torsion.
We first reparameterize the helix with respect to its arc length to simplify
the cal
culations. We see that r0 (t) =< sin t, cos t, 1 > and so |r0 (t)| = 2. Thus, its
R t
arc length is s(t) = 0 2 du = 2t. Thus, we have t = s2 , and so we obtain
r(t(s)) = r(s) =< cos( s2 ), sin( s2 ), s2 > It can be easily verified that |r0 (s)| = 1,
and so r(s) is indeed a unit speed curve.
We now calculate the T , N , and B vectors constituting the Frenet frame of the
helix. We see that
T (s) = r0 (s) =< 12 sin( s2 ), 12 cos( s2 ), 12 >, and therefore
N (s) =
T 0 (s)
|T 0 (s)|
B(s) is then given by B(s) = T (s) N (s) =< 12 sin( s2 ), 12 cos( s2 ), 12 >.
Using the Frenet formulas (4), we calculate the curvature to be = (s) =
T 0 (s)N (s) =< 12 cos( s2 ), 12 sin( s2 ), 0 > < cos( s2 ), sin( s2 ), 0 >= 12 ,
and the torsion to be = (s) = B 0 (s)N (s) = < 21 cos( s2 ), 12 sin( s2 ), 0 >
< cos( s2 ), sin( s2 ), 0 >= 12 .
We can verify the value of the curvature through (2), which gives us,qin the case of
unit speed curves, = |T 0 (s)| = | < 12 cos( s2 ), 12 sin( s2 ), 0 > | =
1
4
= 12 .
ei (s)
,
|ei (s)|
ei (s) = ri (s)
i1
X
(5)
j=1
where < , > is the inner product defined on Rn , which is simply the dot product.
Additionally, the generalized curvature functions, or Frenet curvatures, i (s) are
defined by
i (s) =< e0i (s), ei+1 (s) >,
1 6 i 6 n.
(6)
[6, 9] If C is not parameterized with respect to arc length, then the generalized
curvature functions take the form
< e0i (t), ei+1 (t) >
i (t) =
, 1 6 i 6 n 1.
(7)
|r0 (t)|
Using the generalized curvature functions, a generalized version of the Frenet-Serret
formulas can be written as follows
0
1 (s) 0
..
0
..
..
1 (s)
e1 (s)
.
.
e1 (s)
.
..
..
..
(8)
. = 0
. .
.
0
.
en (s)
en (s)
..
n1 (s)
0
0 n1 (s)
0
[2, 9]
3. Curvature of Surfaces
We now turn our attention to describing the curvature of a surface. Let S =
f (u, v) = (x(u, v), y(u, v), z(u, v) be a regular surface embedded in R3 . In order to
describe the curvature of S, it is first necessary to discuss the fundamental forms
of S.
The first fundamental form of a suface S is defined as the restriction of < , > to
all tangent planes of S, where < , > is the Euclidean inner product in R3 . That
THOMAS SWIFT
is, the first fundamental form, denoted by I, is given by I(x, y) =< x, y > for any
two tangent vectors x, y Tp S for some p. It describes the intrinsic geometry of
a surface. Because S is regular, fu and fv are linearly independent, and so form
a basis for any tangent plane Tp S at a point p on S. Thus, the first fundamental
form can be expressed in this basis as the symmetric matrix
I(fu , fu ) I(fu , fv )
E F
I=
=
,
(9)
I(fv , fu ) I(fv , fv )
F G
where E = fu fu , F = fu fv = fv fu , and G = fv fv . We note that the matrix I
representing the first fundamental form is also referred to as the metric tensor gij
for 1 6 i, j 6 2, as it completely determines the metric of S. [14, 4, 3]
Example 3.1. Calculate the first fundamental form of the sphere of radius r Sr2
parameterized by f (, ) =< r cos sin , r sin sin , r cos >, where 0 < <
2, 0 < < 2.
We first find the partial derivatives of Sr2 , which are given by
f =< r sin sin , r cos sin , 0 > and
f =< r cos cos , r sin cos , r sin > .
Then, E, F , and G are given by
E = f f
=< r sin sin , r cos sin , 0 > < r sin sin , r cos sin , 0 >= r2 sin2 ,
F = f f
=< r sin sin , r cos sin , 0 > < r cos cos , r sin cos , r sin >= 0, and
G = f f
=< r cos cos , r sin cos , r sin > < r cos cos , r sin cos , r sin >= r2 .
Thus, the first fundamental form of Sr2 is given by
2 2
r sin 0
I=
0
r2
Now, it is also important to discuss the second fundamental form of S, which
describes the extrinsic geometry of a surface with respect to the space it is embedded
in. The second fundamental form of a surface S, denoted by II, is defined as
II(x, y) =< s(x), y > for any two tangent vectors x, y Tp S for some p. Here,
s is the shape operator, or Weingarten Map, defined in terms of the directional
derivative by s(x) = x n, where n is the unit normal vector of S given by
v
n = |ffuu f
fv | . We recall that to calculate the directional derivative of a vector field F
along a surface S at a point p in the direction of v Tp S, we calculate the derivative
of the restriction of F to a curve (t) on S which passes through p and which has
its tangent vector at p in the direction of v. That is, v F = (F (t))0 (0), where
: (, ) S is a curve on S such that (0) = p and 0 (0) = v. We note that the
second fundamental form II has a natural connection with the first fundamental
form I since we can write II(x, y) = I(s(x), y). The second fundamental form can
(10)
10
THOMAS SWIFT
Now that we have defined the fundamental forms of S, we can use them to
define various curvature measures for S. The first of these is the normal curvature
of a curve on S. Let (t) = f (u(t), v(t)) be a curve on S with unit speed. We
can then define the Darboux frame, a moving frame which generalizes the Frenet
frame, as the orthonormal basis {0 , n, n 0 }, where n is the unit normal vector
of S as previously defined and 0 is the unit tangent vector, since is unit speed.
Also, since has unit speed, 00 is orthogonal to 0 . Thus, 00 can be written as
a linear of combination of n and n 0 , the coefficients of which are defined to
be the normal curvature, n and the geodesic curvature, g , respectively. That is,
00 = n n + g (n 0 ). This relationship is illustrated in Figure 3.1. Because n and
n 0 are orthogonal vectors, by separately multiplying both sides of the previous
equation by these vectors, we see that the normal curvature and geodesic curvature
can be written as
n = 00 n and g = 00 (n 0 ).
(11)
0
00
We note that, since has unit
speed,
we
have
T
(t)
=
(t),
and
thus
the
curvature
q
of is simply = |00 | = 2n + 2g . Hence, we see that the normal curvature is
the component of the curvature of in the direction of n. We can also define the
normal curvature in terms of the second fundamental form of S by n = Ldu2 +
2M dudv + N dv 2 , which can be expressed in matrix notation as
L M
du
n = du dv
.
(12)
M N
dv
[7]
Figure 3.1. Normal and geodesic curvature of 2 different points on the same curve
on a surface, shown as components of the curves second derivative x00
11
are always perpendicular. Differentiating both sides and applying the product rule,
we have < 00 (s), n((s)) > + < 0 (s), n((s)) >=< 00 , n > + < T, (n())0 (0) >= 0,
by the choice of . Thus, by the definition of the directional derivative, we have
n =< 00 , n >= < T, T n >=< T, s(T ) >=< s(T ), T >= II(T, T ).
However, at a given point p on S, there are infinitely many unit vectors T which
are tangent to S and run through p. Furthermore, we see that S curves differently
in different directions, and so n changes in value for each different unit tangent
vector T . Thus, there will exist unit tangent vectors T 1 and T 2 whose directions
will, respectively, maximize and minimize n of S at p. The vectors T 1 and T 2 are
called the principal directions of S at p, and their corresponding curvatures 1 and
2 are called the principal curvatures of S at p. That is,
1 = max II(T, T )
(13)
2 = min II(T, T ),
(14)
|T |=1
|T |=1
and the resulting maximizing and minimizing directions are T 1 and T 2, respectively.
[3, 7] These values are geometrically depicted in Figure 3.2 below.
As we showed, < s(v), v >= II(v, v), and so these eigenvalues match our definitions
of the principal curvatures in (13). Thus, the principal curvatures 1 and 2 of S
12
THOMAS SWIFT
are defined as the eigenvalues of the shape operator s, which can be expressed by
the following matrix in the {fu , fv } basis
s = I 1 II =
E
F
1
F
L
G
M
M
N
.
(15)
(17)
(18)
We note that the one half factor in front of the trace operator in the mean curvature
calculation is optional, H can also be simply be defined as H = trs. Since s is
defined completely in terms of the first two fundamental forms, we can write the
Gaussian and mean curvature in terms of the elements of the first and second
fundamental form matrices E, F, G, L, M, and N . Using the product and inverse
det II
properties of determinants, det s = det(I 1 II) = det I 1 det II = det
I 1 , and so
we have
det II
LN M 2
K = det s =
=
.
(19)
det I
EG F 2
Taking the trace of s, we can write the mean curvature as
H = trace s =
LG 2M F + N E
2(EG F 2 )
(20)
[3, 4, 14]
Example 3.3. Find the principal, Gaussian, and mean curvatures for the sphere
of radius r Sr2 . We recall from our earlier examples that the shape operator of Sr2
is given by s(x) = 1r x.
We first take the geometric approach. If we choose T Tp S with unit length,
then II(T, T ) = 1r T T = 1r |T |2 = 1r . So, we see that II(T, T ) is constant
for any unit-length T Tp S. Thus, maximizing and minimizing this value across
all T Tp S yields this constant in both cases, and so we see that the principal
13
1 = max II(T, T ) =
|T |=1
0
1r
.
Thus, the principal curvatures are given by the eigenvalues of s, which are obtained
by solving
1
1
( )( ) = 0,
r
r
1
which yields the single root = r . Thus, the principal curvatures are 1 = 2 =
1r . So, once again, we see that the Gaussian and mean curvatres are
1
1
1
K = 1 2 = ( )( ) = 2
r
r
r
1 1 1
1
1
H = (1 + 2 ) = ( ) = .
2
2 r
r
r
14
THOMAS SWIFT
rx ry
|rx ry |
(f ,f ,1)
= x 2 y 2 , which we
1+fx +fy
negate to make it outward pointing, the first two fundamental forms of S are given
by
1 + fx2 fx fy
I=
fx fy 1 + fy2
1
fxx fxy
.
II = q
1 + fx2 + fy2 fxy fyy
Thus, the shape operator is given by
1
1 1 + fx2 fx fy
fxx fxy
s=
fx fy 1 + fy2
fxy fyy
d
1 (1 + fy2 )fxx fx fy fxy (1 + fy2 )fxy fx fy fyy
,
= 3
(1 + fx2 )fxy fx fy fxx (1 + fx2 )fyy fx fy fxy
d
q
where d = 1 + fx2 + fy2 .
Taking the determinant and (one half of) the trace of this matrix, we see that the
Guassian and mean curvatures are
2
fxx fyy fxy
(21)
K=
(1 + fx2 + fy2 )2
H=
(22)
(23)
(24)
(25)
where the domain of both surfaces is < u < and 0 6 v < 2 and a, b are
constants. [1]. These surfaces are pictured below in Figure 3.3.
15
Example 3.5. An interesting relationship between the catenoid and helicoid can
be uncovered by calculating the Gaussian curvature of each of these surfaces.
We start by looking at the catenoid, parameterized by
f (u, v) =< a cosh u cos v, a cosh u sin v, au >, as in (24). We calculate its partial
derivatives and unit normal vector to be the following:
fu =< a sinh u cos v, a sinh u sin v, a >
II =
0
b
b
.
0
16
THOMAS SWIFT
det II
1
b2
= 2 sech4 u.
= 4
4
det I
b
b cosh u
Thus, in the case where b = a2 , we see that the catenoid and helicoid have the same
Gaussian curvature, and so, by Gauss Theorem Egregium, one can be deformed
into the other by some isometric map.
2
X
lij fl + ij n,
(26)
l=1
2
X
l=1
2
X
lij glk ,
(27)
l=1
using the definition of the first fundamental form and the fact that n is orthogonal
to tangent vector fk .
To solve for lij , we multiply (27) by the inverse metric element g km and use the
definition of the Kronecker delta to obtain
< fij , fk > g km =
2
X
l=1
lij glk g km =
2
X
l=1
lij lm = m
ij .
17
(28)
However, we see that we can obtain an expression for < fij , fk > purely in terms of
the metric g using Gauss trick of indix permutation. We first write
fi
fj
gij =
< fi , fj >=< k , fj > + < fi , k > .
k
k
u
u
u
u
By using the notation
the set of equtions
g
uk ij
(29)
(30)
(31)
lij =
1 X kl
g (gik,j + gjk,i gij,k ).
2
(32)
k=1
The scalar functions lij are known as the Christoffel symbols. By taking the dot
product of (26) with n, we see that ij = IIij , where IIij are the components of
the second fundamental form of S, and so we can rewrite (26) as
fij =
2
X
lij fl + IIij n,
(33)
l=1
which is known as the Gauss formula. We also introduce the Weingarten equations,
nj =
2
X
sij fi ,
(34)
i=1
which gives the partial derivatives of the unit normal vector n in terms of the matrix
components of the Weingarten Map (shape operator) sij , where s = I 1 II, as in
(15).
Using the Gauss formula in (33) and the Weingarten equations in (34), Gauss
18
THOMAS SWIFT
fij
uk
2
X l
(
=
ij fl + IIij n)
uk
fijk =
l=1
2
X
l=1
2
X
2
X
l=1
m=1
l
(lij,k + m
ij mk IIij slk ) fl +
2
X
!
(IIij,k + lij IIlk ) n.
l=1
By once again permuting the indices and by taking advantage of the fact that
l
to be
xijk = xikj , we define the Riemann curvature tensor Rijk
l
Rijk
lik,j
lij,k
2
X
l
m l
(m
ik mj ij mk ) = IIik slj IIij slk ,
(35)
m=1
l
for 1 6 i, j, k, l, m 6 2 [3, 8, 17]. We observe that Rijk
= 0 when j = k, for then
l
l
m l
m l
ik,j = ij,k and ik mj = ij mk .
2
X
l
m l
(m
ij ml il mj ).
(36)
m=1
We note that, like the first fundamental form, the Ricci tensor is symmetric. By
doing one more contraction, this time of the Ricci curvature, we obtain the scalar
curvature of S, which is given by
R = g ij Rij
(37)
[8, 17]
Example 4.1. We calculate the Ricci curvature of the torus parameterized by
f (u, v) =< (c + a cos v) cos u, (c + a cos v) sin u, a sin v >.
Calculating its partial derivatives to be fu =< (c+a cos v) sin u, (c+a cos v) cos u, 0 >
and fv =< a sin v cos u, a sin v sin u, a cos v >, and so its first fundamental form
is:
(c + a cos v)2 0
gij = I =
.
0
a2
This gives the following for the inverse metric components:
1
0
2
ij
1
(c+a
cos
v)
.
g =I =
1
0
a2
We next compute the components of the Riemann curvature tensor using the
Christoffel symbols, as in (35). Since g 12 = g 21 = 0, one of the terms in the
19
summation in (32) always vanishes, and so the Christoffel symbols are given by
1
lij = g kl (gik,j + gjk,i gij,k ),
2
where k = l. We also see that gij,1 = gij,u = 0 i, j since none of the metric
components depend on u, g22,v = 0 since g22 = a2 is a constant, and g12 = g21 = 0.
So,
1
uij = g 11 (gi1,j + gj1,i gij,u )
2
1
= g 11 (gi1,j + gj1,i )
2
= 0,
when i = j. Similarly,
1 22
g (gi2,j + gj2,i gij,v )
2
= 0,
vij =
2
X
u
m u
(m
ik mj ij mk )
m=1
v
Rijk
= vik,j vij,k +
2
X
v
m v
(m
ik mj ij mk ),
m=1
20
THOMAS SWIFT
2 X
2
X
g ij Rij
i=1 j=1
5. Future Work
In future papers, we plan to look into how to measure curvature for generic
manifolds of higher than two dimension. For now, however, we see that many of
the above concepts can easily be generalized to n-dimensional manifolds. To start,
an n-dimensional manifold M will have n parameters, and we can therefore extend
the first fundamental form, or metric, of the manifold into an n-dimensional square
matrix through computing the first order partial derivatives of M with respect
to each of its n parameters. Using this extended metric, it is easy to define the
Christoffel symbols, and hence the Riemann and Ricci curvature tensors, of M
through the same equations as in the two-dimensional case. The indices for each
of these components will simply each range from 1 to n instead of 1 to 2, allowing
them to easily be generalized to higher dimensional objects. Next time, we plan
to provide more in-depth analysis of such manifolds and the different measures of
curvature which are computed on them.
Acknowledgements. Thanks to Professor Sema Salur for all of the guidance she gave
me as I was writing this paper. This paper was written as part of a one credit independent
study in conjunction with course MTH 255, Differential Geometry, as part of the upperlevel writing requirement for the mathematics major at the University of Rochester.
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Department of Mathematics, University of Rochester, NY, 14627
E-mail address: tswift@u.rochester.edu