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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 rate that the vector field alters the volume in an infinitesimal neighborhood of each point. (In 2D this "volume" refers to area.) More precisely, the divergence at a point is the rate that the flow of the vector field modifies a volume about the point ''in the limit'', as a small volume shrinks down to the 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 fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sources And Sinks
In the physical sciences, engineering and mathematics, sources and sinks is an analogy used to describe properties of vector fields. It generalizes the idea of fluid sources and sinks (like the faucet and drain of a bathtub) across different scientific disciplines. These terms describe points, regions, or entities where a vector field originates or terminates. This analogy is usually invoked when discussing the continuity equation, the divergence of the field and the divergence theorem. The analogy sometimes includes swirls and saddles for points that are neither of the two. In the case of electric fields the idea of flow is replaced by field lines and the sources and sinks are electric charges. Description and fluid dynamics analogy In physics, a vector field \mathbf b(x,y,z) is a function that returns a vector and is defined for each point (with coordinates x,y,z) in a region of space. The idea of sources and sinks applies to \mathbf b if it follows a continuity equation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vector Calculus
Vector calculus or vector analysis is a branch of mathematics concerned with the differentiation and integration of vector fields, primarily in three-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 the theory of quaternions 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'', though earlier mathematicians such as Isaac Newton pioneered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vector Field
In vector calculus and physics, a vector field is an assignment of a vector to each point in a space, most commonly Euclidean space \mathbb^n. A vector field on a plane can be visualized as a collection of arrows with given magnitudes and directions, each attached to a point on the plane. Vector fields are often used to model, for example, the speed and direction of a moving fluid throughout three dimensional space, such as the wind, or the strength and direction of some force, such as the magnetic or gravitational force, as it changes from one point to another point. The elements of differential and integral calculus extend naturally to vector fields. When a vector field represents force, the line integral of a vector field represents the work done by a force moving along a path, and under this interpretation conservation of energy is exhibited as a special case of the fundamental theorem of calculus. Vector fields can usefully be thought of as representing the velocit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 in 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 expre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 el ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 invertible, 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 Gabriel Lamé, 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 coordinate system, cylindrical and spherical coordinates, 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 i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Del In Cylindrical And Spherical Coordinates
This is a list of some vector calculus formulae for working with common curvilinear coordinates, curvilinear coordinate systems. Notes * This article uses the standard notation ISO 80000-2, which supersedes ISO 31-11#Coordinate systems, ISO 31-11, for spherical coordinate system, spherical coordinates (other sources may reverse the definitions of ''θ'' and ''φ''): ** The polar angle is denoted by \theta \in [0, \pi]: 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 [0, 2\pi]: 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 of a function, domain and Image (mathematics), image. The classical arctan function has an image of , whereas atan2 is defined to have an image of . Coordinate conversions Note that the operation \arctan\le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vector (mathematics And Physics)
In mathematics and physics, vector is a term that refers to physical quantity, quantities that cannot be expressed by a single number (a scalar (physics), 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 displacement (geometry), 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 or other objects) 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 (mathematics), set equipped with a vector addition and a scalar multiplication that satisfy some axioms generalizing the main properties of operations on the abov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 scalar, the ''flow speed''. 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 sai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 over this surface a scalar field (that is, a function of position which returns a scalar as a value), 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 in the classical theories of electromagnetism and fluid mechanics. 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spherical Coordinates
In mathematics, a spherical coordinate system specifies a given point in three-dimensional space by using a distance and two angles as its three coordinates. These are * the radial distance along the line connecting the point to a fixed point called the origin; * the polar angle between this radial line and a given ''polar axis''; and * the azimuthal angle , which is the angle of rotation of the radial line around the polar axis. (See graphic regarding the "physics convention".) Once the radius is fixed, the three coordinates (''r'', ''θ'', ''φ''), known as a 3-tuple, provide a coordinate system on a sphere, typically called the spherical polar coordinates. The plane passing through the origin and perpendicular to the polar axis (where the polar angle is a right angle) is called the ''reference plane'' (sometimes '' fundamental plane''). Terminology The radial distance from the fixed point of origin is also called the ''radius'', or ''radial line'', or ''radial coord ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
