What is the "determinant" of two vectors? I came across the notation $\det(v,w)$ where $v$ and $w$ are vectors. Specifically, it was about the curvature of a plane curve:
$$\kappa (t) = \frac{\det(\gamma'(t), \gamma''(t)) }{\|\gamma'(t)\|^3}$$
What is it supposed to mean?

They formed a matrix by stacking $\gamma'(t)$ and $\gamma''(t)$ next to each other as column vectors. You can also regard it as the cross product of the two vectors if you extend both with a $z=0$ coordinate and take the z component of the resulting vector (that way you can relate it to the 3d formula in a way).
