Concept
Affine connection
Related concepts (32)
Second fundamental form
In differential geometry, the second fundamental form (or shape tensor) is a quadratic form on the tangent plane of a smooth surface in the three-dimensional Euclidean space, usually denoted by (read "two"). Together with the first fundamental form, it serves to define extrinsic invariants of the surface, its principal curvatures. More generally, such a quadratic form is defined for a smooth immersed submanifold in a Riemannian manifold. The second fundamental form of a parametric surface S in R3 was introduced and studied by Gauss.
Normal coordinates
In differential geometry, normal coordinates at a point p in a differentiable manifold equipped with a symmetric affine connection are a local coordinate system in a neighborhood of p obtained by applying the exponential map to the tangent space at p. In a normal coordinate system, the Christoffel symbols of the connection vanish at the point p, thus often simplifying local calculations.