Advanced Search

Question: What is the mathematical definition of "walking forward"?

Question:What is the mathematical definition of "walking forward"?

Earl 955 Maple 2020
geodesic torus
September 16 2022
2

In the website https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesic there is an animation of an insect tracing a path on a torus while walking "forward". The caption to the animation says that the path is then by definition a geodesic.

I would like to duplicate this animation in Maple (and other "walking forward" geodesics on other surfaces) which seems to require an exact definition of walking forward but I cannot find such a definition on this or any other website.

Also, I thought that a geodesic is the shortest distance between two points in space, but no such end points are shown in the website's animation. Then how can the word geodesic apply to the insect's path?
Please Wait...