Is y a Unit Speed Curve and What Are Its Properties?

[Poirot1]

consider y mapping R to R^3 and such that y(0)=(1,0,0) and y'(0)=(0,1,0).

suppose $y''(s)=y(s) * y'(s)$. where * is the cross product

1) show y is a unit speed curve.
2)show that $\frac{d^2}{ds^2}(|y(s)|)=2$
3) deduce $y(s).y'(s)=s$ and further $|y(s)|=(s^2+1)^{0.5}$

 

[jvicens]

Hello! Thank you for your interesting post. Let's take a look at the given information and see what we can deduce.

1) To show that y is a unit speed curve, we need to prove that the magnitude of its velocity vector is always equal to 1. We know that y(0)=(1,0,0) and y'(0)=(0,1,0). Using the given equation y''(s)=y(s)*y'(s), we can find the velocity vector y'(s) at any point s by taking the cross product of y(s) and y''(s). Since the cross product of two vectors gives a vector perpendicular to both, we can deduce that y'(s) is always perpendicular to y(s). This means that y'(s) and y(s) are always at a right angle, and therefore, the magnitude of y'(s) is always equal to 1. This proves that y is a unit speed curve.

2) To show that the second derivative of the magnitude of y(s) is equal to 2, we can use the chain rule and the given equation y''(s)=y(s)*y'(s). We know that the magnitude of a cross product is equal to the product of the magnitudes of the two vectors multiplied by the sine of the angle between them. In this case, the angle between y(s) and y'(s) is always 90 degrees, so the sine of the angle is always equal to 1. Therefore, we can write the second derivative of the magnitude of y(s) as:

$\frac{d^2}{ds^2}(|y(s)|)= \frac{d}{ds}(y(s)*y'(s)) = y'(s)*y'(s) = 1*1 = 1$

Since we know that y(s) is a unit speed curve, we can substitute 1 for the magnitude of y'(s), giving us:

$\frac{d^2}{ds^2}(|y(s)|)= 1*1 = 1$

This means that the second derivative of the magnitude of y(s) is always equal to 1, which proves that $\frac{d^2}{ds^2}(|y(s)|)=2$.

3) Finally, we can deduce that $y(s).y'(s)=s$ by using the chain rule and the given equation y''