Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2002/paper-1/9/solution

In Cartesian components, , so
It cannot be a conservative vector field. For the second field, put . Its gradient is . This smooth global scalar function proves is conservative, with . The following path integrals exhibit the different behavior directly.

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