#Calc III: Surfaces and curves in 3D

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loud goblet
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I have a few questions on the things we learned, because I don’t really know where they come from:

  1. point (a,b) is the centre ( of symmetry) for K <-> F(x,y)=0
    <=> F(a-x,b-x)=F(x)
    <=> F’_x(a,b)=0 and F’_y(a,b) = 0

They just gave us this and we just have to accept it but I didn’t understand from where it comes from.

hoary spruceBOT
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surreal ember
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The second condition doesn't seem correct. Shouldn't it be F(2a - x, 2b - y) = F(x, y), rather?
Not sure about the third, though.

loud goblet
surreal ember
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Well, the 2s should definitely be there, as then this becomes an identity for (x, y) = (a, b). Otherwise it doesn't quite work out.

loud goblet
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I just trried it

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and I got that

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but from where does this property come

surreal ember
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Oh, basically, you know how if you take a vector and change the signs of all of its coordinates, then it just inverts about the origin?

loud goblet
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yes

surreal ember
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This is basically the same property, just with some translation (since the center may not be at the origin).

loud goblet
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(x,y,z) -> (-x,-y,-z)

pine cypress
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Imagine (a,b) is the center of symmetry, then if you take the function F(x-a,y-b), it will be symmetric around the origin, right?

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Cuz it's only translation

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And then since it's symmetric, F(x-a,y-b)=F(a-x,b-y)

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And then you can de-translate and get

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F(a-x+a,b-y+B)

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Small b thefe

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And there you see where the 2 comes from

surreal ember
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Yeah, exactly.

loud goblet
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ahh

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that makes a lot of sense

pine cypress
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(x,y)→(x-a,b-y)+(a,b)→(a-x,b-y)+(a,b)→(2a-x,2b-y)

surreal ember
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Oh, actually, I do know how we can get the third property, assuming F is smooth enough to have those first derivatives.

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So, we have F(x, y) = F(2a - x, 2b - y), right? Try differentiating both sides with respect to x.

loud goblet
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but basically

surreal ember
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You can handwrite it and take a photo if that's easier for you.

loud goblet
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F'_x(x,y) = F'_x(2a-x,2b-y)

surreal ember
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Hm, not quite correct.

loud goblet
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oh wait

surreal ember
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Notice how the first argument on the RHS is 2a - x, right? You forgot to use the chain rule.

loud goblet
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so F'_x(x,y) = F'_x(2a-x,2b-y) *(-1)

surreal ember
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Yeah, nice!

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Now, substitute (x, y) = (a, b) on both sides and you'll see something interesting.

loud goblet
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I see F'_x(a,b) = 0

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which we had to show

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and for y it is the same

surreal ember
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Yeah, nice!

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Again, this works only if F is smooth, of course.

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But if the derivatives of F exist, then they must be 0 at the center.

loud goblet
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okay makes sense, yes!! so we basially just showed that point (a,b) is the centre of K if and only if we meet two conditions: F(2a-x,2b-y) = F(x,y) ; F'x(a,b) = 0 and F'y(a,b) = 0

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and basically what we did to F(x,y) is manipulate it with translating and symmetry

surreal ember
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Well, only the first condition is necessary and sufficient.

loud goblet
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oh

surreal ember
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The second is more like a property.

loud goblet
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ah I see

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but F has to be symmetric around the origin

surreal ember
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Well, around (a, b), not necessarily the origin.

loud goblet
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so if its not equal, it probably means it is not symmetrical around the origin?

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oh

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wait let me rephrase it sorry

surreal ember
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For example, take an ellipse: (x - 1)^2 + 2(y + 1)^2 = 1. Clearly, it's symmetric around (1, -1), so you can check whether the conditions apply.

loud goblet
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because I just did everything with desmos and yeah you basically first translate it to the origin then make use of symmetry and then again de translate it

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so you have the same ellipse in this case

surreal ember
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Yeah.

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And if there doesn't exist a point (a, b) such that F(2a - x, 2b - y) = F(x, y) for all (x, y) in the domain of F, then the curve is noncentral. Think parabola, for example.

loud goblet
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okay makes sense, and just another question why did we use symmetry though to come up with 2a-x and 2b-y

surreal ember
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Well, a center is an element of symmetry. The expressions are just what comes out when you invert around (a, b).

loud goblet
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hmm I see

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thank you very much btw!

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I have a few other questions if you don't mind

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We say that L is a tangent line to M in point p <=> the direction vector of L is perpendicular to the gradient of F(p)

surreal ember
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Right, yeah.

loud goblet
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where M is a surface

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but I can't really imagine it

surreal ember
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Ah, for this you need the following useful property:
If you have a curve F(x, y) = 0, then ∇F at any point on this curve is perpendicular to this curve.

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Using that, the property above is obvious - if the gradient is perpendicular to the curve at a point, then it's also perpendicular to the tangent line at that point.

loud goblet
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oh yeah

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that makes sense now yes

surreal ember
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Nice!

surreal ember
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That can be quite useful in physics, for example, when working out field lines from equipotential lines/surfaces or vice versa.

loud goblet
pine cypress
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The property that the gradient is perpendicular to the level curve is also the core of the proof for what's known as a Lagrange multiplier

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It's a concept used to find minimal and maximal values of a function

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On the boundary of a domain

loud goblet
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The only thing that still doesn't make any sense after the previous post was that that the tangent line T is tangent to a curve on a point <=> T intersects K multiple times in point p but I guess im too weak to understand that

loud goblet
surreal ember
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For two curves to be tangent to each other they must coincide at least up to first order; that is, if the curves are r1(t) and r2(t), then they are tangent at t = 0 if r1(t0) = r2(t0) and r1'(t0) = r2'(t0).

loud goblet
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but aren't we just talking about one curve here

surreal ember
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So, both their values coincide and their tangent vectors are parallel.

surreal ember
loud goblet
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oh okay thats what you meant sorry

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yes I agree with that

surreal ember
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This case is more general; for example, two circles (x - 1)^2 + y^2 = 1 and (x + 1)^2 + y^2 = 1 are tangent to each other at the origin.

surreal ember
loud goblet
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yeah

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but what did they exactly mean with T intersect curve K multiple times in point p

surreal ember
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Well, saying it like that isn't very good.

loud goblet
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yeah thats why I was so confused

surreal ember
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By that, they mean specifically that the curves must coincide up to at least first order.

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That "multiple" is the order.

loud goblet
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hmm

surreal ember
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Have you encountered Taylor series before?

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For example, saying that sin(x) = x - x^3/6 + o(x^3) and cos(x) = 1 - x^2/2 + o(x^2) for x -> 0.

loud goblet
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yes, but it has been quite a while

surreal ember
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Well, it's kinda the same idea.

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For example, sin(x) and x - x^3/6 coincide up to the third order, and cos(x) and 1 - x^2/2 coincide up to the second (and third, actually) order.

loud goblet
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yeah

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but essentially from what I remember is that a tangent line is basically a line that just touches the point and so it kind of intersects one time and after that its still very near to it but it isn't touching it

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and now they kinda switched the definition to the above

surreal ember
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Well, the more precise way to define it is as above: same value as the curve and parallel to the tangent vector of the curve.

loud goblet
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but I was looking at some exercise and we had to show that the point p is an intersection point but you'ill get it two times and not just one

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that's why I kind of wanted to understand that "weird" definition

surreal ember
loud goblet
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basically (x-0)(x-0)

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It’s like a double root

surreal ember
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Yeah.

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And here it's sort of similar.

loud goblet
surreal ember
# loud goblet how?

Well, instead of multiplicities of roots, here it's how many orders the curves coincide by, as described above.

loud goblet
surreal ember
# loud goblet Could you maybe show visually what that means?

Sure!
For example, here are the cases where the curves coincide roughly up to zeroth, first and second order. What that specifically means is that if you start at the intersection point and move by distance t from that point on each curve, then for small enough t the distance between resulting points scales as some constant multiple of t (first picture), t^2 (second picture) and t^3 (third picture).
So, the greater the order, the slower the curves diverge from each other when moving away from the intersection point.

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The order can potentially be as high as you want, of course, assuming the curves are smooth enough.

loud goblet
surreal ember
naive iglooBOT
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@loud goblet

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loud goblet
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