Radius of Curvature (applications) - Explanation

Explanation

Imagine driving a car on a curvy road on a completely flat plain (so that the geographic plain is a geometric plane). At any one point along the way, lock the steering wheel in its position, so that the car thereafter follows a perfect circle. The car will, of course, deviate from the road, unless the road is also a perfect circle. The radius of that circle the car makes is the radius of curvature of the curvy road at the point at which the steering wheel was locked. The more sharply curved the road is at the point you locked the steering wheel, the smaller the radius of curvature.

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