Divergence

The divergence operation is performed on a vector and produces a scalar. The del operator followed by the dot product operator is read as "the divergence of" and is an operation performed on a vector. In rectangular coordinates, ∇· means the sum of the partial derivatives of the magnitudes in the x, y, and z directions with respect to the x, y, and z variables. The result is a scalar, and a factor of m^-1 is contributed to the units of the result.

In rectangular coordinates:

In cylindrical coordinates:

In spherical coordinates:

See also: Del Operator, Laplacian.