Talk:Radius of curvature (applications)

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Note that the usages of this term discussed at radius and intrinsic coordinates#Radius of curvature are technically distinct. The former is either the radius of a surface with circular cross-section, or (in engineering, at least) is the radius of the largest circle that circumscribes the part. The latter is the radius of a circle, tangent to a curve at a point, with matching curvature at that point. These are not the same thing.--Srleffler 15:34, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

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[edit] Curvature confusion

I find it extremely confusing that this article starts by talking about two-dimensional surfaces and moves on from there. My understanding (and the article at Mathworld agrees) is that the "radius of curvature" of a curve at a point P, when used by itself, refers to the radius of a circle with curvature equal to that of the curve at the point P. While this article addresses that with the statement "the radius of curvature of a curve at a point is the radius of the osculating circle at that point," this is difficult for a non-mathematician to decipher, particularly since it seems from the first sentence that the radius of curvature must have something to do with spheres or ellipsoids. Furthermore, the fact that a huge fraction of this article deals with spheroids and elliptic coordinates seems highly inappropriate for an article titled "radius of curvature." (Although it was certainly very useful to me since I'm trying to solve for the stress in a thin-walled oblate spheroid pressure vessel.) Wouldn't it be more appropriate to discuss that in Spheroid? The organization in general is pretty weird too -- how come the fact that the radius of curvature is the inverse of the curvature isn't stated until halfway through the article, and then under the heading "Principle radii of curvature"? Like many math-related articles on Wikipedia, this one really needs some work. I'll tackle it when my grad school applications are done if no one else has by then. Geoff 05:47, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm probably the guilty party, as I took it from a simple stub (see previous edit)! P=)
Part of it is I was thinking "curvature" and "curve" are just different forms of the same word (like "verify" vs. "verification"), thus I thought "radius of curvature" and "radius of a plane curve" (or "radius of arc" or just "arcradius") are the same thing. I plan on expanding the Arc (geometry) stub (though the title is still tentative), and then fixing this article up some——though, right now, I'm working on a few supporting articles (that is, after I finish up a major revamping of ellipsoid I'm working on! P=).
I had a productive discussion here regarding curvature, that you may find useful.  ~Kaimbridge~ 15:17, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Radius of curvature (applications) → Radius of curvature — This article appears to have been moved without consensus. Nontrivial page moves must be discussed first. The new name is not good, and it makes little sense to have an article on applications of radius of curvature rather than an article on radius of curvature itself. The change seems to be ill-conceived. —Srleffler (talk) 03:27, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.
  • Comment. There is already an article on radius of curvature itself: Curvature. The present article is a weird fusion of basic maths of the radius of curvature (inferior to "Curvature" and other math articles dealing with the subject) and a section on very peculiar applications to curvature of sections of ellipsoids. Presumably, they are were forked out from other specialized articles, but both their significance and the content are highly unclear. I've created a disambiguation page at radius of curvature, since we already have at least three different articles dealing with the subject, and one of the typical uses of the term in science and engineering (as the synonym of radius) is drastically different. Arcfrk (talk) 22:11, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Any additional comments:

[edit] Outcome

N Since there doesn't seem to be consensus to move, I'm closing this request. -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 04:16, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.