Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2004/paper-2/1/b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2004 Paper 2 1 b Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
Let be the interior of the tetrahedron, and take any constant vector field . Its divergence is zero, so the divergence theorem givesChoosing to be each Cartesian basis vector proves . This is the general fact that vector areas of a closed polyhedron sum to zero, specialized to four faces. The outward orientations are essential: the scalar face areas are all positive and do not sum to zero.
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