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Moderators: For some reason I couldn't edit/delete my last post on Stoke's Thrm. I've revised the question for clarity; please delete the other post. Thanks!
I'm trying to get an intuition on Stoke's Theorem, and all explanations I found use this same argument:
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On a given surface (image below), the curl field at each surface element cancels with the curl field of its neighbors, and the only curl fields that don't get canceled are at the surface boundary.
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Main problem i have with this is, i don't understand what those curls are representing.
Say i have a vector field in R-2 with a non-zero curl. well, if i were to graph its curl field, i would be seeing a bunch of parallel vectors (the curl vector), not a bunch of circulating vectors. This makes me think that those circulating vectors aren't those of the curl field's, but rather those of the original vector field's.
On the other hand, Stoke's theorem mentions the sum of the curl field vectors, not those of the original vector field. See my conundrum?
So are the circulating vectors in the image referring to the original vector field's or the curl field's?
Thanks in advance
I'm trying to get an intuition on Stoke's Theorem, and all explanations I found use this same argument:
-------
On a given surface (image below), the curl field at each surface element cancels with the curl field of its neighbors, and the only curl fields that don't get canceled are at the surface boundary.
-------
Main problem i have with this is, i don't understand what those curls are representing.
Say i have a vector field in R-2 with a non-zero curl. well, if i were to graph its curl field, i would be seeing a bunch of parallel vectors (the curl vector), not a bunch of circulating vectors. This makes me think that those circulating vectors aren't those of the curl field's, but rather those of the original vector field's.
On the other hand, Stoke's theorem mentions the sum of the curl field vectors, not those of the original vector field. See my conundrum?
So are the circulating vectors in the image referring to the original vector field's or the curl field's?
Thanks in advance