Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Oxford / 2017 / Prelims / Mathematics IV resit / 3 / a

At a regular point of the parametrized surface, the partial derivatives ${\mathbf{r}}_s$ and ${\mathbf{r}}_t$ are linearly independent tangent vectors. Their cross product gives a nonzero normal vector:Dividing by its Euclidean norm gives a unit normal; changing the sign chooses the opposite orientation. If the cross product vanishes, this parametrization is singular there and cannot determine a normal vector by this formula.

An infinitesimal parameter rectangle becomes a parallelogram with edges ${\mathbf{r}}_{s}ds$ and ${\mathbf{r}}_{t}dt$. Its area is the Euclidean norm of their cross product, giving the surface area elementThus, for a regular parametrization covering the surface once except possibly on sets of area zero,For several patches, add their surface integrals while avoiding overlap; repeated coverage would otherwise count area with multiplicity.