The position of the centre S of spherical curvature at a point P of a given curve C may be found in the following manner, regarding S as the limiting position of the centre of a sphere through four adjacent points P, P1, P2, P3 on the curve, as these points tend to coincidence at P. The centre of a sphere through P and P1 lies on the plane which is the perpendicular bisector of the chord PP1 and so on. Thus the centre of spherical curvature is the limiting position of the intersection of three normal planes at adjacent points. Let s be the arc-length of the curve C, r the position vector of the point P, and t, n, b unit vectors in the directions of the tangent, principal normal and binormal at P. Then if s is the position vector of the current point on the normal plane at P, the equation of this plane is

Since r and t are functions of s, the limiting position of the line of intersection of the normal planes at P and an adjacent point (i.e. the polar line) is determined by (1) and the equation obtained by differentiating this with respect to s, viz.