Aside: The Del operator

The Del Operator (the upside-down triangle) is one of the most useful operators in fluid mechanics. This clip shows how the Del operator can be used to find the gradient of a scalar field and the divergence of a vector field. Both Cartesian and radial polar coordinates are used and the clip shows why you have to be particularly careful in polar coordinates. (There is a small mistake at 18:00 minutes in the second-last line. There is an erroneous 1/r in front of d(a_theta)/d(theta) inside the brackets).

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