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Wikipedia / First fundamental form

In differential geometry, the first fundamental form is the inner product on the tangent space of a surface in three-dimensional Euclidean space which is induced canonically from the dot product of . It permits the calculation of curvature and metric properties of a surface such as length and area in a manner consistent with the ambient space. The first fundamental form is denoted by the Roman numeral

Definition

Let be a parametric surface. Then the inner product of two tangent vectors where , , and are the coefficients of the first fundamental form.

The first fundamental form may be represented as a symmetric matrix

Further notation

The first fundamental form is often written in the modern notation of the metric tensor. The coefficients may then be written as

The components of this tensor are calculated as the scalar product of tangent vectors and for . See example below.

Calculating lengths and areas

The first fundamental form completely describes the metric properties of a surface. Thus, it enables one to calculate the lengths of curves on the surface and the areas of regions on the surface. The line element

The classical area element given by can be expressed in terms of the first fundamental form with the assistance of Lagrange's identity

Example: curve on a sphere

A spherical curve on the unit sphere in Differentiating with respect to and The coefficients of the first fundamental form may be found by taking the dot product of the partial derivatives.

Length of a curve on the sphere

The equator with ranging from 0 to 2. The line element may be used to calculate the length of this curve.

Area of a region on the sphere

The area element may be used to calculate the area of the unit sphere.

Gaussian curvature

The Gaussian curvature where , , and are the coefficients of the second fundamental form.

Theorema egregium of Gauss states that the Gaussian curvature of a surface can be expressed solely in terms of the first fundamental form and its derivatives, so that is in fact an intrinsic invariant of the surface. An explicit expression for the Gaussian curvature in terms of the first fundamental form is provided by the Brioschi formula.

See also