Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The gradient of the function f(x,y) = −(cos 2 x + cos 2 y) 2 depicted as a projected vector field on the bottom plane. The gradient (or gradient vector field) of a scalar function f(x 1, x 2, x 3, …, x n) is denoted ∇f or ∇ → f where ∇ denotes the vector differential operator, del.
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 [,]: it is the angle between the z-axis and the radial vector connecting the origin to the point in question.
In Cartesian coordinates, the divergence of a continuously differentiable vector field = + + is the scalar-valued function: = = (, , ) (, , ) = + +. As the name implies, the divergence is a (local) measure of the degree to which vectors in the field diverge.
When applied to a field (a function defined on a multi-dimensional domain), it may denote any one of three operations depending on the way it is applied: the gradient or (locally) steepest slope of a scalar field (or sometimes of a vector field, as in the Navier–Stokes equations); the divergence of a vector field; or the curl (rotation) of a ...
In mathematics and physics, Laplace's equation is a second-order partial differential equation named after Pierre-Simon Laplace, who first studied its properties.This is often written as = or =, where = = is the Laplace operator, [note 1] is the divergence operator (also symbolized "div"), is the gradient operator (also symbolized "grad"), and (,,) is a twice-differentiable real-valued function.
In a Cartesian coordinate system, the Laplacian is given by the sum of second partial derivatives of the function with respect to each independent variable. In other coordinate systems , such as cylindrical and spherical coordinates , the Laplacian also has a useful form.
If ,, are the contravariant basis vectors in a curvilinear coordinate system, with coordinates of points denoted by (,,), then the gradient of the tensor field is given by (see [3] for a proof.) = From this definition we have the following relations for the gradients of a scalar field ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } , a vector field v , and a second ...
The operator can also be written in polar coordinates. Let (t, ξ) be spherical coordinates on the sphere with respect to a particular point p of H n−1 (say, the center of the Poincaré disc). Here t represents the hyperbolic distance from p and ξ a parameter representing the choice of direction of the geodesic in S n−2. Then the ...