Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2010/paper-2/16/b/solution

The shorter circular arc lies in the - plane and can be written , . The first field is , whose dot product with is one. Hence
The second field is radial while the circular tangent is perpendicular to the radius, so . Thus the first field gives different values, and , along the two paths, whereas the conservative second field gives the same endpoint difference.
As a check using Stokes theorem, the arc followed by the reversed segment encloses area in the plane. The constant curl has upward component two, giving circulation , exactly the difference above.
Figure 1.
Straight and circular paths with the same endpoints, enclosing the area responsible for their circulation difference
. Details.

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