Curvature of Plane Curves

What is arc length parametrization?

Let
γ : [a, b] ⊆ R → R2 , t 7→ γ(s) = (x(s), y(s))
be a nice curve. We define its arc length from t = a to t = b to be
Z b
||γ 0 (t)||dt.
a
We say that γ(s) is an arc length parametrization provided ||γ 0 (s)|| ≡ 1. We also call
such a parametrized curve a unit speed curve.
Let c : R → R2 , t 7→ c(t) be a curve We can always (assuming that ||c0 (t)|| never equals
0) construct an arc length parametrization for a curve. Define a function
Z τ =t
s : R → R, t 7→ s, t 7→ ||c(τ )0 ||dτ.
τ =a

Observe that
ds
= ||c0 (t)||. (♦)
dt
Define
γ : R → R2 , s → γ(s)
by
γ ◦ s = c.
We have the diagram
RA
AA
AAc
s AA

R / R2
γ

Using the chain rule we have

ds dc
γ 0 (s) · = .
dt dt
From equation ♦ we have that || dt || = dt . Hence ||γ 0 || ≡ 1.
dc ds

We say that a curve γ(s) that is an arclength parametrization is a unit speed curve.
We have that the length of the curve from γ(a) to γ(b) is b − a for any a, b > a.
Definition of Curvature
We start with an arclength parametrized curve γ, so that ||γ 0 (s)|| ≡ 1. Hence we can
write γ 0 (s) = (cos(θ(s)), sin(θ(s))) = t(s). The curvature is how fast the direction of the
tangent vector changes, that is, the curvature is

κ(s) = θ0 (s).

Notice that
γ 00 (s) = θ0 (s)(− sin(θ(s), cos(θ(s)) = θ0 (s)n(s).

1
and that n(s) = (− sin(θ(s), cos(θ(s)) is a normal to the curve so that the two unit vectors

(n(s), t(s))

form an orietnted basis of R2 . From this we can see the difference between curvature that
is positive and curvature that is negative. See the figure.
Observe that the curvature is the area of the rectangle spanned by γ 0 (t) and γ 00 (t).
Hence
γ 0 (s)
 
κ(s) = det .
gamma00 (s)

A formula for the curvature of an arbitrarily (not arclength)

parmetrized curve.
Given c(t) we can theoretically construct a corresponding arc length parametrized curve
γ(s). But only theoretically. How do we explicitly compute the curvature of c(t) in terms
of c0 (t), c00 (t), ds
dt
? We use the diagram

RO A
AA
AAc
s AA

R / R2
γ

The chain rule tells how to compute derivatives of c in terms of the derivatives of s and
dγ
ds
We solve this relation to obtain dγ
. ds
in terms of ds
dt
and dc
dt
. We apply this idea a second
2
d γ 2
d c dc ds
time to obtain ds2 in terms of dt2 , dt , dt .
Applying the chain rule to
γ◦s=c
we obtain
dγ ds dc
= . (?)
ds dt dt
Differentiating this with respect to t, we obtain

ds 2 d2 s d2 c
γ 00 (s) + γ 0 (s) 2 = 2 .
dt dt dt
Using the relation replace γ 0 (s) with a multiple of c0 (t) we find we have

ds 2 dc d2 c
γ 00 (s) +α = 2.
dt dt dt
Solve for γ 00 (s) gives
d2 c dc
2
−β
γ 00 (s) = dt ds 2 dt
( dt )
for an appropriate constant β.

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 We use the determinant formula for curvature. This gives

c0 (t)
 
 ds 
 0     −3  0 
γ (s)  dt   ds c (t)
κ(t) = = det  = det 00 .
γ 00 (s)  00 0
 c (t) − βc (t) 
 dt c (t)
ds 2
 
( )
dt
If c(t) = (x(t), y(t), this gives
x0 y 00 − x00 y 0
κ = 02 .
(x + y 02 )3/2
Specializing more to the case of a curve y = f (x) which we parametrized by (x(t) = t, y(t))
we get
y 00
κ= ,
(1 + y 02 )3/2
d2 y
. but y 00 = dx2
.