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For a parametrized curve on the surface, the energy of a curve iswhere the first fundamental form coefficients are evaluated at $(u(t),v(t))$. A fixed-endpoint variation of a curve has coordinate variation fields $\eta ,\xi$ vanishing at $a,b$. Differentiating under the integral and integrating their derivative terms by parts givesThe fields can be chosen independently with compact support in $(a,b)$. Stationarity and the fundamental lemma of the calculus of variations therefore force both coefficients to vanish. These Euler-Lagrange equations are the geodesic equations: