Question

What is a divergence of a vector field? Express it in cartesian co-ordinate system.

Answer 1

1.The divergence of a vector field simply measures how much the flow is expanding at a given point.

2.It does not indicate in which direction the expansion is occuring.
3.Divergence operates on a vector field `(bar(F))` and produces a scalar quantity that is a measure of how much the vectors are diverging.

4.Divergence is a scalar quantity.

5.Divergence in cartesian co-ordinate system is :

`bar(∇) . bar(A) = (∂A_x) /(∂_x) + (∂A_y)/(∂_y) + (∂A_z)/(∂_z)`