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Lecture4 Vector Differentiation

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6 views

Lecture4 Vector Differentiation

Uploaded by

mahdy demarea
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Lecture4: Vector Differentiation

Monday, November 13, 2023 6:57 PM

Lecture04

Notes Page 1
Notes Page 2
Notes Page 3
Notes Page 4
Lets consider the 2D vector field:

A nice way to think about vector fields is to imagine the fluid flow they could represent.
Specifically, for each point (x, y) in two-dimensional space, imagine a particle sitting at
(x, y) flowing in the direction of the vector attached to that point. Now let's see animation

From the animation notice, during this fluid flow, some regions tend to become less dense
with dots as particles flow away and some particles tend to flow towards each other and
the dots get more dense.

Notes Page 5
Now lets see the animations to notice that:
The divergence of a function v at some point , and it comes out negative (
). This means a fluid flowing along the vector field defined by v would tend
to become more dense at the point .
If the divergence at a point is positive ( ), the fluid flowing along the
vector field becomes less dense around .
If a fluid flows freely, its density stays constant, then .

Example: Find the divergence of the vector field and evaluate


the div at the point (1,2).

Lets consider the 2D vector field:

Now I want you to imagine that this vector field describes a fluid flow, perhaps in a chaotic
part of a river. Now let's see animation to show a simulation of what this might look like.

The vector calculus operation curl answers this question

Curl of F describes the fluid rotation given by that vector field at each point. A positive number of
curl indicates a counter-clockwise rotation while a negative number indicates a clockwise rotation.

Lets consider another 2D vector field:

Determine whether a fluid flowing according to this vector field has clockwise or
counterclockwise rotation at the point (0, /2)

Notes Page 6
Notes Page 7

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