Modern Differential Geometry of Curves and Surfaces with Mathematica, Third Edition

Front Cover
CRC Press, Jun 21, 2006 - Mathematics - 1016 pages
Presenting theory while using Mathematica in a complementary way, Modern Differential Geometry of Curves and Surfaces with Mathematica, the third edition of Alfred Gray’s famous textbook, covers how to define and compute standard geometric functions using Mathematica for constructing new curves and surfaces from existing ones. Since Gray’s death, authors Abbena and Salamon have stepped in to bring the book up to date. While maintaining Gray's intuitive approach, they reorganized the material to provide a clearer division between the text and the Mathematica code and added a Mathematica notebook as an appendix to each chapter. They also address important new topics, such as quaternions.

The approach of this book is at times more computational than is usual for a book on the subject. For example, Brioshi’s formula for the Gaussian curvature in terms of the first fundamental form can be too complicated for use in hand calculations, but Mathematica handles it easily, either through computations or through graphing curvature. Another part of Mathematica that can be used effectively in differential geometry is its special function library, where nonstandard spaces of constant curvature can be defined in terms of elliptic functions and then plotted.

Using the techniques described in this book, readers will understand concepts geometrically, plotting curves and surfaces on a monitor and then printing them. Containing more than 300 illustrations, the book demonstrates how to use Mathematica to plot many interesting curves and surfaces. Including as many topics of the classical differential geometry and surfaces as possible, it highlights important theorems with many examples. It includes 300 miniprograms for computing and plotting various geometric objects, alleviating the drudgery of computing things such as the curvature and torsion of a curve in space.

 

Contents

123
5
Full Contents
5
Famous Plane Curves
39
Alternative Ways of Plotting Curves
73
New Curves from Old
99
Determining a Plane Curve from Its Curvature
127
6
130
Global Properties of Plane Curves
153
17
502
Intrinsic Surface Geometry
531
18
539
Notebook 17
548
Asymptotic Curves and Geodesics on Surfaces
557
19
569
Notebook 18
582
Principal Curves and Umbilic Points
593

Notebook 6
181
Curves in Space
191
8
195
Construction of Space Curves
229
9
238
Calculus on Euclidean Space
263
10
269
Surfaces in Euclidean Space
287
11
293
Nonorientable Surfaces
331
12
336
Metrics on Surfaces
361
13
368
Shape and Curvature
385
14
393
Ruled Surfaces
431
15
439
Surfaces of Revolution and Constant Curvature
461
16
464
A Selection of Minimal Surfaces
501
20
608
Canal Surfaces and Cyclides of Dupin
639
21
644
The Theory of Surfaces of Constant Negative
683
22
687
Minimal Surfaces via Complex Variables
719
23
730
Rotation and Animation Using Quaternions
767
24
779
Differentiable Manifolds
809
25
823
Riemannian Manifolds
847
Abstract Surfaces and Their Geodesics
871
27
888
The GaussBonnet Theorem
901
Bibliography
931
Name Index
953
Notebook Index
977
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2006)

Abbena, Elsa; Salamon, Simon; Gray, Alfred

Bibliographic information