Surfaces in 3-space and their contact with circles (Q1067218)

In 1785, Meusnier considered the family of circles which have 3-point contact with a general surface embedded in 3-space. The present paper uses techniques from singularity theory to investigate the families of circles with higher-order contact with surfaces, and to relate their structure to the local higher-order geometry of the surface. It is shown, for example, that through any generic umbilic there pass 3 curves at each point of which (except at the umbilic itself) there is a circle with 6-point contact with the surface. On approaching the umbilic along any of these curves, these circles curl up and die in one of two ways, related to the two possible values for the index of the umbilic. There is also a generalization to general ridge points of a theorem of \textit{T. Banchoff, T. Gaffney} and \textit{C. McCrory} [Cusps of Gauss mappings. Research Notes in Mathematics 55 (1981; Zbl 0478.53002)] on the geometry associated to a cusp of the Gauss mapping (cusps of Gauss occur at ridge points with principal curvature zero).