In differential geometry, a ribbon (or strip) is the combination of a smooth space curve and its corresponding normal vector. More formally, a ribbon denoted by includes a curve given by a three-dimensional vector , depending continuously on the curve arc-length (), and a unit vector perpendicular to at each point. [1] Ribbons have seen particular application as regards DNA. [2]
The ribbon is called simple if is a simple curve (i.e. without self-intersections) and closed and if and all its derivatives agree at and . For any simple closed ribbon the curves given parametrically by are, for all sufficiently small positive , simple closed curves disjoint from .
The ribbon concept plays an important role in the Călugăreanu-White-Fuller formula, [3] that states that
where is the asymptotic (Gauss) linking number , the integer number of turns of the ribbon around its axis; denotes the total writhing number (or simply writhe ), a measure of non-planarity of the ribbon's axis curve; and is the total twist number (or simply twist ), the rate of rotation of the ribbon around its axis.
Ribbon theory investigates geometric and topological aspects of a mathematical reference ribbon associated with physical and biological properties, such as those arising in topological fluid dynamics, DNA modeling and in material science.
In mathematics, the branch of real analysis studies the behavior of real numbers, sequences and series of real numbers, and real functions. Some particular properties of real-valued sequences and functions that real analysis studies include convergence, limits, continuity, smoothness, differentiability and integrability.
In mathematics, the Lp spaces are function spaces defined using a natural generalization of the p-norm for finite-dimensional vector spaces. They are sometimes called Lebesgue spaces, named after Henri Lebesgue, although according to the Bourbaki group they were first introduced by Frigyes Riesz. Lp spaces form an important class of Banach spaces in functional analysis, and of topological vector spaces. Because of their key role in the mathematical analysis of measure and probability spaces, Lebesgue spaces are used also in the theoretical discussion of problems in physics, statistics, finance, engineering, and other disciplines.
In mathematics, an infinite series of numbers is said to converge absolutely if the sum of the absolute values of the summands is finite. More precisely, a real or complex series is said to converge absolutely if for some real number Similarly, an improper integral of a function, is said to converge absolutely if the integral of the absolute value of the integrand is finite—that is, if
In physics and electromagnetism, Gauss's law, also known as Gauss's flux theorem, is a law relating the distribution of electric charge to the resulting electric field. In its integral form, it states that the flux of the electric field out of an arbitrary closed surface is proportional to the electric charge enclosed by the surface, irrespective of how that charge is distributed. Even though the law alone is insufficient to determine the electric field across a surface enclosing any charge distribution, this may be possible in cases where symmetry mandates uniformity of the field. Where no such symmetry exists, Gauss's law can be used in its differential form, which states that the divergence of the electric field is proportional to the local density of charge.
In vector calculus, Green's theorem relates a line integral around a simple closed curve C to a double integral over the plane region D bounded by C. It is the two-dimensional special case of Stokes' theorem.
In mathematics, the uniform boundedness principle or Banach–Steinhaus theorem is one of the fundamental results in functional analysis. Together with the Hahn–Banach theorem and the open mapping theorem, it is considered one of the cornerstones of the field. In its basic form, it asserts that for a family of continuous linear operators whose domain is a Banach space, pointwise boundedness is equivalent to uniform boundedness in operator norm.
In mathematics, an isometry is a distance-preserving transformation between metric spaces, usually assumed to be bijective.
In mathematics, the limit of a sequence is the value that the terms of a sequence "tend to", and is often denoted using the symbol. If such a limit exists, the sequence is called convergent. A sequence that does not converge is said to be divergent. The limit of a sequence is said to be the fundamental notion on which the whole of mathematical analysis ultimately rests.
In mathematics, the linking number is a numerical invariant that describes the linking of two closed curves in three-dimensional space. Intuitively, the linking number represents the number of times that each curve winds around the other. In Euclidean space, the linking number is always an integer, but may be positive or negative depending on the orientation of the two curves.
The Arzelà–Ascoli theorem is a fundamental result of mathematical analysis giving necessary and sufficient conditions to decide whether every sequence of a given family of real-valued continuous functions defined on a closed and bounded interval has a uniformly convergent subsequence. The main condition is the equicontinuity of the family of functions. The theorem is the basis of many proofs in mathematics, including that of the Peano existence theorem in the theory of ordinary differential equations, Montel's theorem in complex analysis, and the Peter–Weyl theorem in harmonic analysis and various results concerning compactness of integral operators.
In mathematics, specifically functional analysis, a Banach space is said to have the approximation property (AP), if every compact operator is a limit of finite-rank operators. The converse is always true.
In knot theory, there are several competing notions of the quantity writhe, or . In one sense, it is purely a property of an oriented link diagram and assumes integer values. In another sense, it is a quantity that describes the amount of "coiling" of a mathematical knot in three-dimensional space and assumes real numbers as values. In both cases, writhe is a geometric quantity, meaning that while deforming a curve in such a way that does not change its topology, one may still change its writhe.
A superhelix is a molecular structure in which a helix is itself coiled into a helix. This is significant to both proteins and genetic material, such as overwound circular DNA.
In mathematics, there are usually many different ways to construct a topological tensor product of two topological vector spaces. For Hilbert spaces or nuclear spaces there is a simple well-behaved theory of tensor products, but for general Banach spaces or locally convex topological vector spaces the theory is notoriously subtle.
In mathematics, Dvoretzky's theorem is an important structural theorem about normed vector spaces proved by Aryeh Dvoretzky in the early 1960s, answering a question of Alexander Grothendieck. In essence, it says that every sufficiently high-dimensional normed vector space will have low-dimensional subspaces that are approximately Euclidean. Equivalently, every high-dimensional bounded symmetric convex set has low-dimensional sections that are approximately ellipsoids.
In mathematics, the Johnson–Lindenstrauss lemma is a result named after William B. Johnson and Joram Lindenstrauss concerning low-distortion embeddings of points from high-dimensional into low-dimensional Euclidean space. The lemma states that a set of points in a high-dimensional space can be embedded into a space of much lower dimension in such a way that distances between the points are nearly preserved. The map used for the embedding is at least Lipschitz, and can even be taken to be an orthogonal projection.
In mathematics, the Möbius energy of a knot is a particular knot energy, i.e., a functional on the space of knots. It was discovered by Jun O'Hara, who demonstrated that the energy blows up as the knot's strands get close to one another. This is a useful property because it prevents self-intersection and ensures the result under gradient descent is of the same knot type.
In differential geometry, the twist of a ribbon is its rate of axial rotation. Let a ribbon be composted of space curve , where is the arc length of , and the a unit normal vector, perpendicular at each point to . Since the ribbon has edges and , the twist measures the average winding of the edge curve around and along the axial curve . According to Love (1944) twist is defined by
In mathematics, the injective tensor product of two topological vector spaces (TVSs) was introduced by Alexander Grothendieck and was used by him to define nuclear spaces. An injective tensor product is in general not necessarily complete, so its completion is called the completed injective tensor products. Injective tensor products have applications outside of nuclear spaces. In particular, as described below, up to TVS-isomorphism, many TVSs that are defined for real or complex valued functions, for instance, the Schwartz space or the space of continuously differentiable functions, can be immediately extended to functions valued in a Hausdorff locally convex TVS without any need to extend definitions from real/complex-valued functions to -valued functions.
Gheorghe Călugăreanu was a Romanian mathematician, professor at Babeș-Bolyai University, and full member of the Romanian Academy.
