Parametric derivative

is a derivative in calculus that is taken when both the x and y variables (traditionally independent and dependent, respectively) depend on an independent third variable t, usually thought of as "time".

Example:
For example, consider the set of functions where:

and

The first derivative of the parametric equations above is given by:

where the notation denotes the derivative of x with respect to t, for example. To understand why the derivative appears in this way, recall the chain rule for derivatives:

or in other words

More formally, by the chain rule:

and dividing both sides by

gets the equation above.

Differentiating both functions with respect to t leads to

and

respectively. Substituting these into the formula for the parametric derivative, we obtain

where

and

are understood to be functions of t.

The second derivative of a parametric equation is given by

by making use of the quotient rule for derivatives. The latter result is useful in the computation of curvature.

Curvature
A simple, if crude, definition of a circle is "a curved line bent in equal proportions, where its endpoints meet". Curvature, then, is the state and degree of deviation from a straight linei.e., an "arced line". There are different interpretations of curvature, depending on such things as the planular angle the given arc is dividing and the direction being faced at the surface's point. What is concerned with here is normal curvature, where "normal" refers to orthogonality, or perpendicularity. There are two principal curvatures identified, a maximum, 1, and a minimum, 2.

Radius of curvature has specific meaning and sign convention in optical design. A spherical lens or mirror surface has a center of curvature located in (x, y, z) either along or decentered from the system local optical axis. The vertex of the lens surface is located on the local optical axis. The distance from the vertex to the center of curvature is the radius of curvature of the surface. The sign convention for the optical radius of curvature is as follows:

If the vertex lies to the left of the center of curvature, the radius of curvature is positive. If the vertex lies to the right of the center of curvature, the radius of curvature is negative.

Thus when viewing a biconvex lens from the side, the left surface radius of curvature is positive, and the right surface has a negative radius of curvature. Note however that in areas of optics other than design, other sign conventions are sometimes used. In particular, many undergraduate physics textbooks use an alternate sign convention in which convex surfaces of lenses are always positive. Care should be taken when using formulas taken from different sources. If curve, is a parameterized curve in , is given by then the radius of curvature at each point of the

. As a special case, if f(t) is a function from to , then the curvature of its graph, , is

Center of curvature
In geometry, center of curvature of a curve is found at a point that is at a distance equal to the radius of curvature lying on the normal vector. It is the point at infinity if the curvature is zero. The osculating circle to the curve is centered at the center of curvature. Cauchy defined the center of curvature C as the intersection point of two infinitely closenormals to the curve