minimal surface
Among the surfaces , with twice continuously differentiable, a minimal surface is such that in every of its points, the mean curvature
vanishes. Because the mean curvature is the arithmetic mean
of the principal curvatures
and , the equation
is valid in each point of a minimal surface.
A minimal surface has also the property that every sufficiently little portion of it has smaller area than any other regular surface with the same boundary curve.
Trivially, a plane is a minimal surface. The catenoid is the only surface of revolution which is also a minimal surface.