Chapter 11: Q. 22 (page 889)
Find the arc length of the curves defined by the vector-valued functions on the specified intervals in Exercises 22鈥27.
Short Answer
The length is
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Chapter 11: Q. 22 (page 889)
Find the arc length of the curves defined by the vector-valued functions on the specified intervals in Exercises 22鈥27.
The length is
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Find and graph the vector function determined by the differential equation
. (HINT: Start by solving the initial-value problem .)
Imagine that you are driving on a twisting mountain road. Describe the unit tangent vector, principal unit normal vector, and binomial vector as you ascend, descend, twist right, and twist left.
As we saw in Example 1, the graph of the vector-valued function is a circular helix that spirals counterclockwise around the z-axis and climbs as t increases. Find another parametrization for this helix so that the motion is downwards.
The DNA molecule takes the shape of a double helix鈥攖wo helices that stay a roughly uniform distance apart.
(a) Neglecting actual dimensions, we can model one strand of DNA using the vector function .
Sketch the graph of . What is the effect of the parameter ?
(b) The second strand of DNA can be constructed by shifting the first. Does the graph of ever intersect that of ?
(c) The distance between two curves is the minimum distance between any two points on the curves. What is the distance between and if ? (Hint: Write two points on the curves using parameters and , expand the formula for the distance between them, and then use a trigonometric identity for addition. Then let
and minimize.).

Given a differentiable vector-valued function , what is the relationship between and at a pointin the domain of ?
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