Divergence
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Divergence
In vector calculus, divergence is a vector operator that operates on a vector field, producing a scalar field giving the quantity of the vector field's source at each point. More technically, the divergence represents the volume density of the outward flux of a vector field from an infinitesimal volume around a given point. As an example, consider air as it is heated or cooled. The velocity of the air at each point defines a vector field. While air is heated in a region, it expands in all directions, and thus the velocity field points outward from that region. The divergence of the velocity field in that region would thus have a positive value. While the air is cooled and thus contracting, the divergence of the velocity has a negative value. Physical interpretation of divergence In physical terms, the divergence of a vector field is the extent to which the vector field flux behaves like a source at a given point. It is a local measure of its "outgoingness" – the extent t ...
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Divergence (captions)
In vector calculus, divergence is a vector operator that operates on a vector field, producing a scalar field giving the quantity of the vector field's source at each point. More technically, the divergence represents the volume density of the outward flux of a vector field from an infinitesimal volume around a given point. As an example, consider air as it is heated or cooled. The velocity of the air at each point defines a vector field. While air is heated in a region, it expands in all directions, and thus the velocity field points outward from that region. The divergence of the velocity field in that region would thus have a positive value. While the air is cooled and thus contracting, the divergence of the velocity has a negative value. Physical interpretation of divergence In physical terms, the divergence of a vector field is the extent to which the vector field flux behaves like a source at a given point. It is a local measure of its "outgoingness" – the extent to ...
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Flux
Flux describes any effect that appears to pass or travel (whether it actually moves or not) through a surface or substance. Flux is a concept in applied mathematics and vector calculus which has many applications to physics. For transport phenomena, flux is a vector quantity, describing the magnitude and direction of the flow of a substance or property. In vector calculus flux is a scalar quantity, defined as the surface integral of the perpendicular component of a vector field over a surface. Terminology The word ''flux'' comes from Latin: ''fluxus'' means "flow", and ''fluere'' is "to flow". As '' fluxion'', this term was introduced into differential calculus by Isaac Newton. The concept of heat flux was a key contribution of Joseph Fourier, in the analysis of heat transfer phenomena. His seminal treatise ''Théorie analytique de la chaleur'' (''The Analytical Theory of Heat''), defines ''fluxion'' as a central quantity and proceeds to derive the now well-known ...
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Vector Calculus
Vector calculus, or vector analysis, is concerned with differentiation and integration of vector fields, primarily in 3-dimensional Euclidean space \mathbb^3. The term "vector calculus" is sometimes used as a synonym for the broader subject of multivariable calculus, which spans vector calculus as well as partial differentiation and multiple integration. Vector calculus plays an important role in differential geometry and in the study of partial differential equations. It is used extensively in physics and engineering, especially in the description of electromagnetic fields, gravitational fields, and fluid flow. Vector calculus was developed from quaternion analysis by J. Willard Gibbs and Oliver Heaviside near the end of the 19th century, and most of the notation and terminology was established by Gibbs and Edwin Bidwell Wilson in their 1901 book, '' Vector Analysis''. In the conventional form using cross products, vector calculus does not generalize to higher di ...
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Solenoidal Vector Field
In vector calculus a solenoidal vector field (also known as an incompressible vector field, a divergence-free vector field, or a transverse vector field) is a vector field v with divergence zero at all points in the field: \nabla \cdot \mathbf = 0. A common way of expressing this property is to say that the field has no sources or sinks.This statement does not mean that the field lines of a solenoidal field must be closed, neither that they cannot begin or end. For a detailed discussion of the subject, see J. Slepian: "Lines of Force in Electric and Magnetic Fields", American Journal of Physics, vol. 19, pp. 87-90, 1951, and L. Zilberti: "The Misconception of Closed Magnetic Flux Lines", IEEE Magnetics Letters, vol. 8, art. 1306005, 2017. Properties The divergence theorem gives an equivalent integral definition of a solenoidal field; namely that for any closed surface, the net total flux through the surface must be zero: where d\mathbf is the outward normal to each surface e ...
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Curvilinear Coordinates
In geometry, curvilinear coordinates are a coordinate system for Euclidean space in which the coordinate lines may be curved. These coordinates may be derived from a set of Cartesian coordinates by using a transformation that is locally invertible (a one-to-one map) at each point. This means that one can convert a point given in a Cartesian coordinate system to its curvilinear coordinates and back. The name ''curvilinear coordinates'', coined by the French mathematician Lamé, derives from the fact that the coordinate surfaces of the curvilinear systems are curved. Well-known examples of curvilinear coordinate systems in three-dimensional Euclidean space (R3) are cylindrical and spherical coordinates. A Cartesian coordinate surface in this space is a coordinate plane; for example ''z'' = 0 defines the ''x''-''y'' plane. In the same space, the coordinate surface ''r'' = 1 in spherical coordinates is the surface of a unit sphere, which is curved. The formalism of curvil ...
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Del In Cylindrical And Spherical Coordinates
This is a list of some vector calculus formulae for working with common curvilinear coordinate systems. Notes * This article uses the standard notation ISO 80000-2, which supersedes ISO 31-11, for spherical coordinates (other sources may reverse the definitions of ''θ'' and ''φ''): ** The polar angle is denoted by \theta \in , \pi/math>: it is the angle between the ''z''-axis and the radial vector connecting the origin to the point in question. ** The azimuthal angle is denoted by \varphi \in , 2\pi/math>: it is the angle between the ''x''-axis and the projection of the radial vector onto the ''xy''-plane. * The function can be used instead of the mathematical function owing to its domain and image. The classical arctan function has an image of , whereas atan2 is defined to have an image of . Coordinate conversions CAUTION: the operation \arctan\left(\frac\right) must be interpreted as the two-argument inverse tangent, atan2. Unit vector conversions Del ...
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Spherical Coordinates
In mathematics, a spherical coordinate system is a coordinate system for three-dimensional space where the position of a point is specified by three numbers: the ''radial distance'' of that point from a fixed origin, its ''polar angle'' measured from a fixed zenith direction, and the '' azimuthal angle'' of its orthogonal projection on a reference plane that passes through the origin and is orthogonal to the zenith, measured from a fixed reference direction on that plane. It can be seen as the three-dimensional version of the polar coordinate system. The radial distance is also called the ''radius'' or ''radial coordinate''. The polar angle may be called '' colatitude'', '' zenith angle'', '' normal angle'', or '' inclination angle''. When radius is fixed, the two angular coordinates make a coordinate system on the sphere sometimes called spherical polar coordinates. The use of symbols and the order of the coordinates differs among sources and disciplines. This article wi ...
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Cylindrical Coordinate System
A cylindrical coordinate system is a three-dimensional coordinate system that specifies point positions by the distance from a chosen reference axis ''(axis L in the image opposite)'', the direction from the axis relative to a chosen reference direction ''(axis A)'', and the distance from a chosen reference plane perpendicular to the axis ''(plane containing the purple section)''. The latter distance is given as a positive or negative number depending on which side of the reference plane faces the point. The ''origin'' of the system is the point where all three coordinates can be given as zero. This is the intersection between the reference plane and the axis. The axis is variously called the ''cylindrical'' or ''longitudinal'' axis, to differentiate it from the ''polar axis'', which is the ray that lies in the reference plane, starting at the origin and pointing in the reference direction. Other directions perpendicular to the longitudinal axis are called ''radial lines''. The ...
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Surface Integral
In mathematics, particularly multivariable calculus, a surface integral is a generalization of multiple integrals to integration over surfaces. It can be thought of as the double integral analogue of the line integral. Given a surface, one may integrate a scalar field (that is, a function of position which returns a scalar as a value) over the surface, or a vector field (that is, a function which returns a vector as value). If a region R is not flat, then it is called a ''surface'' as shown in the illustration. Surface integrals have applications in physics, particularly with the theories of classical electromagnetism. Surface integrals of scalar fields Assume that ''f'' is a scalar, vector, or tensor field defined on a surface ''S''. To find an explicit formula for the surface integral of ''f'' over ''S'', we need to parameterize ''S'' by defining a system of curvilinear coordinates on ''S'', like the latitude and longitude on a sphere. Let such a paramet ...
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Determinant
In mathematics, the determinant is a scalar value that is a function of the entries of a square matrix. It characterizes some properties of the matrix and the linear map represented by the matrix. In particular, the determinant is nonzero if and only if the matrix is invertible and the linear map represented by the matrix is an isomorphism. The determinant of a product of matrices is the product of their determinants (the preceding property is a corollary of this one). The determinant of a matrix is denoted , , or . The determinant of a matrix is :\begin a & b\\c & d \end=ad-bc, and the determinant of a matrix is : \begin a & b & c \\ d & e & f \\ g & h & i \end= aei + bfg + cdh - ceg - bdi - afh. The determinant of a matrix can be defined in several equivalent ways. Leibniz formula expresses the determinant as a sum of signed products of matrix entries such that each summand is the product of different entries, and the number of these summands is n!, the factorial o ...
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Velocity Field
In continuum mechanics the flow velocity in fluid dynamics, also macroscopic velocity in statistical mechanics, or drift velocity in electromagnetism, is a vector field used to mathematically describe the motion of a continuum. The length of the flow velocity vector is the flow speed and is a scalar. It is also called velocity field; when evaluated along a line, it is called a velocity profile (as in, e.g., law of the wall). Definition The flow velocity ''u'' of a fluid is a vector field : \mathbf=\mathbf(\mathbf,t), which gives the velocity of an '' element of fluid'' at a position \mathbf\, and time t.\, The flow speed ''q'' is the length of the flow velocity vector :q = \, \mathbf \, and is a scalar field. Uses The flow velocity of a fluid effectively describes everything about the motion of a fluid. Many physical properties of a fluid can be expressed mathematically in terms of the flow velocity. Some common examples follow: Steady flow The flow of a fluid is ...
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Vector (mathematics And Physics)
In mathematics and physics, vector is a term that refers colloquially to some quantities that cannot be expressed by a single number (a scalar), or to elements of some vector spaces. Historically, vectors were introduced in geometry and physics (typically in mechanics) for quantities that have both a magnitude and a direction, such as displacements, forces and velocity. Such quantities are represented by geometric vectors in the same way as distances, masses and time are represented by real numbers. The term ''vector'' is also used, in some contexts, for tuples, which are finite sequences of numbers of a fixed length. Both geometric vectors and tuples can be added and scaled, and these vector operations led to the concept of a vector space, which is a set equipped with a vector addition and a scalar multiplication that satisfy some axioms generalizing the main properties of operations on the above sorts of vectors. A vector space formed by geometric vectors is called a ...
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