Flux around a removable point singularity 2026-10-25
A continuous extension of a vector field across one point need not be differentiable, so it does not automatically meet the classical hypotheses of the divergence theorem. Instead apply the divergence theorem after deleting a ball around that point. If on its boundary in dimensions, the magnitude of the inner flux is at most a constant times . When this tends to zero. If the divergence is also integrable, passing to the limit recovers the outer flux from the volume integral. For example, a planar vector field with has an inner flux of order , even when its extension is not differentiable at the origin.
For , the partial derivatives and giveAdding these partial derivatives yields the divergence:The original vector field is undefined at the origin. Since , it has the continuous extension . This extension is not differentiable: on its first component is , whose derivative at zero does not exist. Thus the displayed divergence has no classical value at the origin.
The triangle is . In polar coordinates this becomesbecause the outer side is . The vector field and the Jacobian determinant giveEvaluate the double integral component by component:Consequently,The origin causes no ambiguity in this double integral: the continuous extension from part (a) is bounded there, and changing a value at a single point does not change the integral.
We give the explicit point . Repeatedly choose the left remaining third and then the right remaining third. After choices, the resulting closed interval is , whereThese formulas follow from a finite geometric series. They show , and that both endpoints tend to . The point is also strictly inside each intermediate left third: its distance from is one quarter of the current length. It therefore never enters any assigned closed middle third or its endpoints, so .
Endpoint values in the Cantor function construction obey the same left/right choices, with halving in place of thirding. ThusAll these endpoints are in the domain of the partial function: is the right endpoint of a middle third assigned at round , and is the left endpoint of a middle third assigned at round .
Given , choose so that , and put . If and , then . The assumed monotonicity givesConsequently . This proves directly, on the stated partial domain,There are defined points arbitrarily close to , for example and , so the limit of a function is not vacuous. No continuous extension has been assumed. The residual here omits the endpoints that the question assigns values to; it is the usual Cantor set with those assigned endpoints removed.
