Use the arc length coordinate oriented in the direction of increasing : , with . Also , giving and . The Lagrange identity for the cross product yields
The curvature of a space curve is therefore
For the forward portion , this has ordinary nonnegative arc length . If instead nonnegative distance is measured backwards from , put for ; that branch has , . Choosing orientation avoids confusing the two points at the same unoriented distance.
Expanding a sum of squares gives the -dimensional Lagrange identity for the cross product:
The left-hand side is nonnegative, so