Practical application - normal to a curve? [Solved!]

X

Hi there. First off, I just wanted to say a huge thank you for the site you've created. It's certainly more of a pleasure to read compared to the annoying mathematical jargon I have put up with in my high school maths textbook, which is usually too convoluted for me to understand.

Second, I just have a question about finding the normal of a curve. What is the practical application (ie. real-world application) of finding the normal of a curve? Can you give me a real-world example?

Thanks in advance, and keep up the good work!

Relevant page

<a href="/applications-differentiation/1-tangent-normal.php">1. Tangents and Normals</a>

What I've done so far

I understand how to find it (find the slope of the tangent, then use the perpendicular rule m1*m2 = -1)

X

Hi Daniel

Thanks for your kind comments.

As for your second point... good question, and I don't know why there were no applications on that page. I have updated the page accordingly. 

<a href="/applications-differentiation/1-tangent-normal.php">1. Tangents and Normals</a>

Hope it helps.