Weingarten surfaces with moving frames -- a tribute to S.S. Chern and C.L. Terng -- and a duality result

Abstract

The techniques used in this paper are based on the exterior calculus of Maurer-Cartan forms, and Weingarten surfaces are used to illustrate the methods that apply to quadratic exterior equations with constant coefficients. Isothermic {\it surfaces of constant astigmatism} (non-linear Weingarten surfaces whose difference of principal curvatures is a constant) are shown to represent dual surfaces of isothermic surfaces which satisfy the relation $H + \alpha K = 0$.