# Usage of Del in Spherical Polar Coordinates

1. Nov 7, 2015

### Dewgale

Hi all,

I'm having some problems in grasping/properly understanding the usage of the del operator ( $\nabla$ ) in spherical co-ordinates, and I was wondering if someone could point me to some good resources on the subject, or take a bit of time to try to explain it to me. It just doesn't seem to be clicking.

Thanks!

2. Nov 7, 2015

### SteamKing

Staff Emeritus
It's not clear where you difficulties may lie.

Here is the Del operator defined for cylindrical and spherical coordinate systems:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Del_in_cylindrical_and_spherical_coordinates

3. Nov 7, 2015

### Dewgale

Basically, I was given a few questions to do on the usage of the Del operator on a very simple couple of functions, but the conversions from cartesian and so on got my head spinning and I wasn't sure where to start.

4. Nov 7, 2015

### Staff: Mentor

Post a specific exercise in one of our Homework and Coursework Questions forums. Show what you have tried and where you get stuck. Someone will probably be able to help.

5. Nov 8, 2015

### SteamKing

Staff Emeritus
If you know how to use Del in these other coordinate systems, this may eliminate the need to do coordinate conversions.