Recommended Books on Amazon
Complete 17Calculus Recommended Book List →

The curvature of a smooth curve is a measure of how 'tight' or 'sharp' the curve is. If we have a smooth curve \(\vec{r}\) and we have a function s which is the arc length function, the curvature is defined to be
\(\displaystyle{ K(s) = \left\| \frac{d\vec{T}}{ds} \right\|}\).

This equation for the curvature is not particularly useful for calculations. So we have several other ways to write the equation of the curvature. But first notice, that the curvature is a scalar function, not a vector function. And since it is the norm of a vector, the curvature will always be positive.

For our first equation to use when calculating the curvature, we will use the chain rule to write \(\displaystyle{ \frac{d\vec{T}}{dt} = \frac{d\vec{T}}{ds} \cdot \frac{ds}{dt} }\). We can solve for \(d\vec{T}/ds\) to get

\(\displaystyle{ K = \left\| \frac{d\vec{T}}{ds} \right\| = \frac{\| d\vec{T}/dt \|}{ \| ds/dt \| } = \frac{1}{\| \vec{v} \|} \left\| \frac{d\vec{T}}{dt} \right\| }\)

Notice in the previous equation, we used \(ds/dt = \|\vec{v}\|\) to simplify the equation somewhat.
Now we can write the first curvature formula in a form that we can use for calculations. \[\displaystyle{ K(t) = \frac{1}{\|\vec{v}\|} \left\| \frac{d\vec{T}}{dt} \right\| = \frac{\| \vec{T}'(t) \|}{\|\vec{r}'(t)\|} }\]

If we define a vector \(\vec{a} = d\vec{v}/dt\) as an acceleration vector, a second curvature formula is \[\displaystyle{ K=\frac{\|\vec{v} \times \vec{a} \|}{\|\vec{v}\|^3} }\] Before working some practice problems, here is a quick video clip for you that should help you understand curvature a bit better.