How do you analytically describe traversing a curve in the counterclockwise direction?

625 Views Asked by At

while I was studying Vector Calculus with Apostol book, I read this part:

"In a completely rigorous treatment of Green’s theorem it would be necessary to describe analytically what it means to traverse a closed curve in the “counterclockwise direction.”

and I'd like to know where to find more information about this, or if anyone has a precise definition of an analitycal description of moving along a curve in the counterclockwise direction, thanks.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

1
On

I've never seriously considered this question before you asked it, so these are my thoughts which may be overcomplicating things.

You could perhaps think about it in terms of a parameterization for the simple, closed curve $C$. For instance, if your curve is parameterized by $r(t) = \langle x(t), y(t) \rangle$ and your parameterization traverses the curve in the "counterclockwise direction'' then your unit normal vector is given by $$N(t) = \frac{T'(t)}{||T'(t)||}$$ where $T(t)$ is the unit tangent vector, $$T(t) = \frac{r'(t)}{||r'(t)||}$$ The vector $N$ should point toward the region enclosed by $C$ (you know the curve divides the plane into an interior and exterior region by the Jordan Curve Theorem, which is never a thing I like to rely on but hey it works). So perhaps your analytic way of determining "counterclockwise direction'' would be to say that at any time $t$, there is some $c$ which is sufficiently small for which $$ r(t) + cN(t)$$ lies in the region enclosed by $C$.