Past exam of the mathematical methods II course of the University of Oxford 2019 8 c iii Solution 2026-10-25
For , the azimuthal unit vector is , soOn a counterclockwise circle at fixed height, . Henceindependent of the positive radius. Clockwise orientation reverses the sign.
There is no contradiction with the zero curl found in solution. The vector field is undefined on the axis, so it is not continuously differentiable on a disc spanning ; the hypotheses of Stokes theorem fail for that disc. It is smooth on a planar annulus excluding the axis, where Stokes theorem correctly gives zero: the two boundary line integrals cancel, .
The same check works for general . A counterclockwise circle has circulation . Integrating the curl over an annulus gives, for ,For , both sides are zero. Thus all three preceding results are consistent with Stokes theorem; the necessary distinctions are the regularity of the vector field and inclusion of every oriented boundary component.