integral representation of length of smooth curve
Suppose is a continuously differentiablecurve. Then the definition of its lengthas a rectifiable curve
is equal to its length as computed in differential geometry:
Proof.
Let the partition of be arbitrary. Then
(fundamental theorem of calculus![]() | ||||
(triangle inequality![]() ![]() | ||||
Hence .(By the way, this also shows that is rectifiable in the first place.)
The inequality in the other direction is more tricky.Given , we know that can be approximated up to by a Riemann sum
of the form
provided the partition is fine enough,i.e. has mesh width for some small .We want to approximate with, but this only worksif is small.
To get the precise estimates, use uniform continuityof on to obtain a such thatwhenever .Then for all and ,
Let the partition have a mesh width less than both and . Thensetting successively in each summand,we have
Taking yields .∎
We remark that is true for piecewise smooth curves also, simply by adding together the results for each smooth segment of .