Differential Geometry of Curves and Surfaces

Through two previous editions, the third edition of this popular and intriguing text takes both an analytical/theoretical approach and a visual/intuitive approach to the local and global properties of curves and surfaces.

Requiring only multivariable calculus and linear algebra, it develops students’ geometric intuition through interactive graphics applets. Applets are presented in Maple workbook format, which readers can access using the free Maple Player.

The book explains the reasons for various definitions while the interactive applets offer motivation for definitions, allowing students to explore examples further, and give a visual explanation of complicated theorems. The ability to change parametric curves and parametrized surfaces in an applet lets students probe the concepts far beyond what static text permits. Investigative project ideas promote student research.

At users of the previous editions' request, this third edition offers a broader list of exercises. More elementary exercises are added and some challenging problems are moved later in exercise sets to assure more graduated progress. The authors also add hints to motivate students grappling with the more difficult exercises.

This student-friendly and readable approach offers additional examples, well-placed to assist student comprehension. In the presentation of the Gauss-Bonnet Theorem, the authors provide more intuition and stepping-stones to help students grasp phenomena behind it. Also, the concept of a homeomorphism is new to students even though it is a key theoretical component of the definition of a regular surface. Providing more examples show students how to prove certain functions are homeomorphisms.

Thomas F. Banchoff is a geometer and a professor at Brown University. Dr. Banchoff was president of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) from 1999 to 2000. He has published numerous papers in a variety of journals and has been the recipient of many honors, including the MAA’s Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award and Brown’s Teaching with Technology Award. He is the author of several books, including Linear Algebra Through Geometry with John Wermer and Beyond the Third Dimension.

Stephen Lovett is an associate professor of mathematics at Wheaton College. Dr. Lovett has taught introductory courses on differential geometry for many years, including at Eastern Nazarene College. He has given many talks over the past several years on differential and algebraic geometry as well as cryptography. In 2015, he was awarded Wheaton’s Senior Scholarship Faculty Award. He is the author of Abstract Algebra: Structures and Applications, Differential Geometry of Manifolds, Second Edition, A Transition to Advanced Mathematics with Danilo Dedrichs (forthcoming), all published by CRC Press.