Phrase guide

Gauss map

noun · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

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Pronunciation

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1

noun

Meaning 1

A map from a given oriented surface in Euclidean space to the unit sphere which maps each point on the surface to a unit vector orthogonal to the surface at that point.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Qualifier: differential geometry

Topics: geometry, mathematics, sciences

Examples

  • 1969 [Van Nostrand], Robert Osserman, A Survey of Minimal Surfaces, 2014, Dover, Unabridged republication, page 73, There exist complete generalized minimal surfaces, not lying in a plane, whose Gauss map lies in an arbitrarily small neighborhood on the sphere.
  • 1985, R. G. Burns (translator), B. A. Dubrovin, A. T. Fomenko, S. P. Novikov, Modern Geometry― Methods and Applications: Part II: The Geometry and Topology of Manifolds, Springer, Graduate Texts in Mathematics, page 114, 14.2.2 Theorem The integral of the Gaussian curvature over a closed hypersurface in Euclidean n-space is equal to the degree of the Gauss map of the surface, multiplied by γn (the Euclidean volume of the unit (n-1)-sphere).

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

Named after German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss.