Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2007/ia/paper-3/3a/i/solution

For a regular differentiable curve , its speed is , where is arc length. The oriented unit tangent vector is . The curvature of a space curve is . Equivalently, for a twice differentiable regular curve,
For the helix, differentiation gives and speed . Consequently
Indeed has magnitude , and division by gives the result. This requires ; the excluded constant curve has no well-defined unit tangent vector. For the curve is a straight line with zero curvature of a space curve.

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