- #1
dav2008
Gold Member
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Homework Statement
Compute [tex] \nabla \cdot \nabla f[/tex] in polar coordinates.
Homework Equations
The Attempt at a Solution
It seems like a straightforward dot product yields
[tex] \nabla \cdot \nabla f = {\partial^2 f \over \partial \rho^2}
+ {1 \over \rho^2} {\partial^2 f \over \partial \theta^2}
+ {\partial^2 f \over \partial z^2 }[/tex]
since the 3 basis vectors are mutually orthogonal.
This is obviously not the correct expression, which should be:
[tex]{1 \over \rho} {\partial \over \partial \rho}
\left( \rho {\partial f \over \partial \rho} \right)
+ {1 \over \rho^2} {\partial^2 f \over \partial \theta^2}
+ {\partial^2 f \over \partial z^2 [/tex]
Where is that first term coming from?
It seems like I'm ignoring something simple when calculating the dot product. What am I failing to take into account?