Curl 1

Before I actually show you the

mechanics of what the curl of a vector
field really is, let's try to get a little bit
a function.

So here I've drawn.

I'm going to just draw a two-

dimensional vector field.

You can extrapolate to 3, but when

we're getting the intuition, it's good to
do it in 2. And so, let's see.

intuition = quick insight = quick

understanding

� Linear interpolation- a method of

estimating the coordinates of a point
that lies between two given data
points.

�Linear extrpolation- a method or

estimating the coordinates of a point
that lies to the right or left of all given
data points.

I didn't even label the x and y axis. This

is x, this is y.
So when y is relatively low, our
magnitude vector goes in the x
direction, when it increases a little bit,
it gets a little bit longer.

So as we can see, as our change in the

y-direction, as we go in the y-direction,
the x-component of our vectors get
larger and larger and may be in the x-
direction they're constant, regardless
of your level of x, the magnitude stays.

regardless = without regard = tanpa

memperhatikan

So for given y, the magnitude of your x-

component vector might stay the
same.

So I mean, this vector field might look

something like this.

I'm just making up numbers.

May be it's just, I don't know, y

squared i.

So the magnitude of the x-direction is

just a function of your y-value. And as
your y-values get bigger, proportional
to the square of the magnitude of the
y direction.

But for any given x, it's always going to

be same.

It's only dependent on y.

So here, even if we make x larger, we

still get the same magnitude.
And remember, these are just sampel
points on our vector field.

But anyway, that's enough of just

getting the intuition behind that vector
field.

But let me ask you a question.

If I were to take a little twig or

something, and I were to place the
twig in this fluida, so let me place the
twig right here.

twig = ranting kayu

twig = a small shoot or branch usually

without its leaves

Let me draw my twig.

So let's say I place a twig, it's a funny-

looking twig, but that's good enough.

Let's say I place a twig right there.

What's going to happen to the twig?

Well, at this point on the twig, the

water's moving to the right, so it'll
push this part of the twig to the right.

At the top of the twig, the water is also

moving to the right, may be with a
faster velocity, but it's also going to be
being pushed to the right faster than
the bottom of the twig, right?

So what's going to happen? The twig's

going to rotate right?
After, I don't know, some period of
time, the twig's going to look
something like this.

The bottom will move a little bit to the

right, but the top will more a lot more
to the right, right?

And the whole thing would have been

shifted to the right.

shift =

But it's going to rotate a little bit. And

may be after a little bit further, may be
it looks something like this.

So you can see that because the

vectors increasing ini a direction that is
perpendicular to our direction of
motion, right?

This is fairly simpleks example, all of

the vectors point on the x-direction,
but the magnitude of the vectors
increase, they increase
perpendicularly, they increase in the y-
direction, right?

and when this happened, when the

flow is going in the same direction, but
it's going at a different magnitude, you
see that any object in itu will rotate,
right?

So let's think about that.

So of the derivative, the partial

derivative of this vectors field with
respect to y is increasing or
decreasing, of it's just changing, that
means as we increase in y, or as we
decreasing in y, the magnitude of the
x-component of our vectors, right, the
x-direction of our vectors changed.

And so of you have a different speed

for different levels of y, as something
moved on the x-direction, it's going to
be rotated, right?

You could almost view itu as of there's

a net torque on an inject that sits in
the water here.

And the ultimate would be, let me

draw another vector field.

The ultimate would be, if I had this

situation, let me draw another vector
field.

If I had this situation. Let me draw

another vector field. If I had this
situation, where maybe down here it's
like this, then maybe it's like this, and
then maybe it gets really small, then
maybe it switches directions, up here,
and then the vector field goes like this.

So you could imagine up here that's

going to the left, with a fairly large
magnitude. So if you put a twig here,
you would definetly hopefully see that
the twig, not only will it not be shifted
to the right, it's going to be rotated.

And you'll see that there's a net torque

on the twig. So what's the intuition
there? All of a sudden, we care about
how much is the magnitude of a vector
charging, not in it's direction of
motion. So when we learned about dot
and cross product, what did we learn?
We learned that the dot product of 2
vectors tells you how much 2 vectors
more together, and the cross product
tells you how much perpendicular. It's
kind of the multiplication of the
perpendicular components of a vector.

So this might give you a little intuition

of what is the curl. Because the curl
essentially measure what is the
rotational effect, or I guess you could
say, what is the curl of a vector field at
a given point? And you can visualize it.

You put a twig there, what would

happen to the twig? If the twig rotates
and there's some curl, if the
magnitude of the rotation is larger,
then the curl is larger. If it rotates in
the other direction, you will here the
negative direction of curl. And so just
like what we did with torque.

We now care about the direction.

Because we care whether it's going
counterclockwise or clockwise, so
we're going to end up with a vector
quantity, right? So, and all of this
should hopefully start fitting together
at this point. We're been dealing with
this Dell vector or this,you know we
could call this abusive notation, but it
kind of is intuitive, although it really
doesn't have any meaning when I
describe it like this.

You can kind of write it as a vector

operator, and then it has a little bit
more meeting. But this Dell, operator
we use it bunch of times. You know, if
the partial derivative of something in
the i-direction, plus the partial
derivative, something with respect to y
in the j-direction, plus the partial
derivative well this is if we do it in
three dimensions with respect to z in
the k-direction.

When we applied it to just a scalar or

vector field, you know like a three-
dimensional function, we just
multiplied this times that scalar
function, we got the gradient.

When we took the dot product of this

with a vector field, we got the
divergence of the vector field. And this
should be a little bit in twitire to you,
at this point.

Because when we, you might want to

review our original videos where we
compaired the dot product to the
cross product.

Because the dot product was, how

much do two vectors more together?
So when you're taking this Dell
operator and dotting it with a vector
field you're saying. How much is the
vector field changing, right?

All a derivative is a partial derivative or

a normal derivative, it's just a rate of
change. Partial derivative with respect
to x is rate of change in the x-direction.

So all you're saying is, when you're

taking a dot product, how much is my
rate of change in the y-direction
increasing in the y-direction?

And so it makes sense that it helps us

with divergence. Because remember, if
this is a vector, and then as we
increase this in the x-direction, the
vectors increase, we took a little point,
and we said, oh at this point we're
going to have more leaving than
entering, so we have a positive
divergence. But that makes sense, also
because as you go in the x-direction,
the magnitude of the vector increase.

Anyway, I don't want to confuse you

too much. So now, the intuition
because now we don't care about the
rate of change of the magnitude of the
vectors perpendicular the direction of
the vector.

So the curl, you might guess is equal to

the cross product of our Dell operator
and the vector field. And if that was
where your intuition led you, and that
is what your guess is you a measure of
how much ia that field rotating, or
maybe if you imagine an object in the
field, how much is the field causing
something to rotate because it's
exerting a net torque?

Because at different points in the

object, you have different magnitude
of a field in the same direction.
Anyway, I dont want to confuse you
too much. Hopefully that example I
just showed you will make a little bit of
sense.

Anyway I realize I've already pushed 9

minutes. In the next video, I'll actually
compute curl, and maybe we'll try to
draw a couple more to hit the intuition
home. See you in the next video.