Differential geometryDifferential geometry is a mathematical discipline that studies the geometry of smooth shapes and smooth spaces, otherwise known as smooth manifolds. It uses the techniques of differential calculus, integral calculus, linear algebra and multilinear algebra. The field has its origins in the study of spherical geometry as far back as antiquity. It also relates to astronomy, the geodesy of the Earth, and later the study of hyperbolic geometry by Lobachevsky.
GeodesicIn geometry, a geodesic (ˌdʒiː.əˈdɛsɪk,-oʊ-,-ˈdiːsɪk,_-zɪk) is a curve representing in some sense the shortest path (arc) between two points in a surface, or more generally in a Riemannian manifold. The term also has meaning in any differentiable manifold with a connection. It is a generalization of the notion of a "straight line". The noun geodesic and the adjective geodetic come from geodesy, the science of measuring the size and shape of Earth, though many of the underlying principles can be applied to any ellipsoidal geometry.
GeometryGeometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is called a geometer. Until the 19th century, geometry was almost exclusively devoted to Euclidean geometry, which includes the notions of point, line, plane, distance, angle, surface, and curve, as fundamental concepts.
Differential geometry of surfacesIn mathematics, the differential geometry of surfaces deals with the differential geometry of smooth surfaces with various additional structures, most often, a Riemannian metric. Surfaces have been extensively studied from various perspectives: extrinsically, relating to their embedding in Euclidean space and intrinsically, reflecting their properties determined solely by the distance within the surface as measured along curves on the surface.
ManifoldIn mathematics, a manifold is a topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space near each point. More precisely, an -dimensional manifold, or -manifold for short, is a topological space with the property that each point has a neighborhood that is homeomorphic to an open subset of -dimensional Euclidean space. One-dimensional manifolds include lines and circles, but not lemniscates. Two-dimensional manifolds are also called surfaces. Examples include the plane, the sphere, and the torus, and also the Klein bottle and real projective plane.
Spherical geometrySpherical geometry is the geometry of the two-dimensional surface of a sphere. Long studied for its practical applications – spherical trigonometry – to navigation, spherical geometry bears many similarities and relationships to, and important differences from, Euclidean plane geometry. The sphere has for the most part been studied as a part of 3-dimensional Euclidean geometry (often called solid geometry), the surface thought of as placed inside an ambient 3-d space.
Gauss–Bonnet theoremIn the mathematical field of differential geometry, the Gauss–Bonnet theorem (or Gauss–Bonnet formula) is a fundamental formula which links the curvature of a surface to its underlying topology. In the simplest application, the case of a triangle on a plane, the sum of its angles is 180 degrees. The Gauss–Bonnet theorem extends this to more complicated shapes and curved surfaces, connecting the local and global geometries. The theorem is named after Carl Friedrich Gauss, who developed a version but never published it, and Pierre Ossian Bonnet, who published a special case in 1848.
Geodetic effectThe geodetic effect (also known as geodetic precession, de Sitter precession or de Sitter effect) represents the effect of the curvature of spacetime, predicted by general relativity, on a vector carried along with an orbiting body. For example, the vector could be the angular momentum of a gyroscope orbiting the Earth, as carried out by the Gravity Probe B experiment. The geodetic effect was first predicted by Willem de Sitter in 1916, who provided relativistic corrections to the Earth–Moon system's motion.
Moving frameIn mathematics, a moving frame is a flexible generalization of the notion of an ordered basis of a vector space often used to study the extrinsic differential geometry of smooth manifolds embedded in a homogeneous space. In lay terms, a frame of reference is a system of measuring rods used by an observer to measure the surrounding space by providing coordinates. A moving frame is then a frame of reference which moves with the observer along a trajectory (a curve).
Weil conjecturesIn mathematics, the Weil conjectures were highly influential proposals by . They led to a successful multi-decade program to prove them, in which many leading researchers developed the framework of modern algebraic geometry and number theory. The conjectures concern the generating functions (known as local zeta functions) derived from counting points on algebraic varieties over finite fields. A variety V over a finite field with q elements has a finite number of rational points (with coordinates in the original field), as well as points with coordinates in any finite extension of the original field.
