Past exam of the geometry course of the University of Oxford / 2011 / 3 / b

Two regular coordinate patches are locally isometric under a coordinate correspondence exactly when it preserves their first fundamental forms. More explicitly, a diffeomorphism $\Phi :U\to \tilde{U}$ of parameter domains induces a local isometry if and only ifIn common coordinates this means equality of the three coefficient functions $E,F,G$. The criterion follows because the first fundamental form gives the inner product of every pair of tangent vectors. Equality therefore preserves lengths of all curves; conversely a smooth isometry preserves tangent-vector lengths and their inner products by polarization.