Curl
Curl measures the circulation density of a vector field.
Contents
Description
Curl refers to how much rotation there is in a vector field. It is measured using differentiation.
For a vector field given as F = <P(x,y), Q(x,y)>, it is calculated as:
where k̂ is the unit basis vector.
For a vector field given as F = <P,Q,R>, it is calculated as:
where î, ĵ, and k̂ are all unit basis vectors.
Note that curl returns a new vector field. Generally this vector field is then evaluated at a given point.
Properties
An irrotational vector field has zero curl.
The curl of a conservative vector field is always 0.