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For $0<A<1$, rotate the unit-speed profilenear $s=0$. Since $K=-Y^{\prime \prime }/Y$, the resulting regular surface of revolution has $K=1$. At $s=0$ its principal curvatures are $A$ and $A^{-1}$, so the point is not umbilical when $A\ne 1$ and no neighbourhood of it lies on a sphere.

At $p\in D$, each of the given ambient rotations fixes $p$, rotates its tangent plane and preserves the local surface. Naturality of the shape operator under that rotation makes $S_p$ commute with every planar rotation. A symmetric real two-by-two operator commuting with all rotations is scalar, so every point of $D$ is an umbilical point. The trace-free part of the shape operator is continuous. Density therefore makes it zero everywhere on $S$.

Locally write $S=\kappa I$. The Codazzi equation gives $(X\kappa )Y=(Y\kappa )X$ for tangent fields $X,Y$; choosing independent fields proves $d\kappa =0$. Thus the surface is locally a plane if $\kappa =0$, or has constant spherical centersince its differential is $I-S/\kappa =0$. A change of normal reverses both $N$ and $\kappa$, leaving this center unchanged, so these local descriptions patch across the connected surface. In the flat case the whole surface lies in one plane, where a regular surface without boundary is open; a nonempty such set cannot also be compact and closed. Hence the flat case is excluded. In the other case $S$ lies on one sphere of radius $1/|\kappa |$. Its inclusion in that sphere is locally open, since both have dimension two, and its compactness makes the image closed. Connectedness of the sphere forces the image to be the entire sphere. Therefore $S$ is a sphere.

The shape operator is the self-adjoint tangent map $S_p=-d{N}_p$, using a locally chosen unit normal. Its eigenvalues ${\kappa }_1,{\kappa }_2$ are the principal curvatures, and their eigenvectors give the principal directions. At an umbilical point they coincide, so $S_p=\kappa I$ and every tangent direction is principal. Reversing the normal changes both curvature signs but does not change the principal directions or umbilicity.

No. Fix $0<A<1$ and, near $s=0$, letThen $f^{\prime 2}+g^{\prime 2}=1$, so this is a regular unit-speed profile with $f>0$ on a sufficiently small interval. Rotate it around the $z$-axis. For an arc-length surface of revolution, $K=-f^{\prime \prime }/f$, and thereforeAt $s=0$, the formulas from part (a) give the principal curvaturesThey are unequal because $A\ne 1$, so the point is not an umbilical point. Every point of a sphere is umbilical. Consequently no neighbourhood of this point can lie on a sphere, giving a non-spherical surface of constant Gaussian curvature one.

For an oriented smooth surface $S$, the Gauss map sends $p$ to the chosen unit normal vector $N(p)\in S^2$. Since $|N{|}^2=1$, differentiation shows that $D{N}_p(X)$ is perpendicular to $N(p)$ and hence lies in $T_{p}S$.

In a local parametrization $\varphi (u,v)$ with $n=N\circ \varphi$, differentiatinggivesThus the bilinear form $(X,Y)\mapsto D{N}_p(X)\cdot Y$ is symmetric, so $D{N}_p$ is self-adjoint. The Gaussian curvature isWriting the coefficients of the first fundamental form asand those of the second fundamental form asone obtains

At an umbilic point, the self-adjoint map $D{N}_p$ has a repeated eigenvalue, so it is a scalar map. If every point is umbilic, there is a function $\lambda$ withEquality of mixed partial derivatives givesThe two tangent vectors are linearly independent, hence ${\lambda }_u={\lambda }_v=0$. Since ${\mathbb{R}}^2$ is connected, $\lambda$ is constant.

If $\lambda =0$, then $n$ is constant andso $S$ lies in a plane. If $\lambda \ne 0$, thenThus $n-\lambda \varphi =c$ is constant, andTherefore $S$ lies in a sphere of radius $1/|\lambda |$. This proves that the surface is part of a plane or part of a sphere.

The Gauss map sends $p$ to the chosen unit normal $N(p)$. Differentiating $⟨N,N⟩=1$ shows that $d{N}_p$ maps $T_{p}S$ into itself. The shape operator $S_p=-d{N}_p$ is self-adjoint because its associated second fundamental form is symmetric. Its eigenvalues $k_1,k_2$ are the principal curvatures. A point is umbilical when $k_1=k_2$, and the surface is minimal when its mean curvature $H=(k_1+k_2)/2$ vanishes everywhere.

In an orthonormal principal basis, $d{N}_p$ has diagonal matrix $\mathrm{diag}(-k_1,-k_2)$. It is conformal exactly whenwhich is equivalent to $k_1^2=k_2^2\ne 0$. At a nonumbilical point this says $k_1=-k_2$, exactly the condition $H=0$. Hence, when there are no umbilical points, the surface is minimal if and only if its Gauss map is conformal.

At a point of a smooth surface, a normal section of a surface can bend by different amounts depending on its tangent vector. The principal curvatures are the largest and smallest signed normal curvatures among unit tangent vectors. Equivalently they are the two eigenvalues $k_1,k_2$ of the shape operator, with an orthonormal basis $e_1,e_2$ of corresponding principal directions. Here the labels follow the selected directions, without requiring $k_1\le k_2$. ^[ref]

For a unit tangent vector making angle $\theta$ with $e_1$, Euler formula for normal curvature givesThe normal curvature is a weighted average of the principal curvatures; the extremes occur in the principal directions. If the principal curvatures coincide, every direction in the tangent plane is a principal direction: this is an umbilical point. The Gaussian curvature and mean curvature summarize the pair by

For an outward-oriented sphere of radius $R$, both principal curvatures are $-1/R$, so the normal curvature is $-1/R$ in every direction. For an outward-oriented circular cylinder, choose $e_1$ around the circumference and $e_2$ along the axis. The principal curvatures are $-1/R,0$, giving $k_n(\theta )=-{\cos }^2\theta /R$; halfway between the principal directions, $k_n(\pi /4)=-1/(2R)$.

At the origin of the upward-oriented hyperbolic paraboloid $z=(x^2-y^2)/2$, the principal directions are the coordinate axes and the principal curvatures are $1,-1$ in the chosen length unit. Thus $k_n(\theta )=\cos (2\theta )$, with zero normal curvature at $\theta =\pi /4,3\pi /4$. Zero normal curvature in these directions coexists with Gaussian curvature $-1$: the shape operator is not zero. The mean curvature is zero at this point; this does not say that the whole hyperbolic paraboloid is a minimal surface.

Each graph uses angle $\theta$ in the tangent plane, measured from the indicated first principal direction. The sphere and circular cylinder have $R=1$; the saddle graph refers only to the origin. Reversing the unit normal reflects each normal curvature graph through zero, negates both principal curvatures and the mean curvature, and preserves their product, the Gaussian curvature.