Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2008 / Paper 2 / 18 / b / Solution

Since $\mathbf{a}$ is constant, componentwise differentiation gives $\nabla \cdot (\mathbf{a}\varphi )={\sum }_i{a}_i{\partial }_i\varphi =\mathbf{a}\cdot \nabla \varphi$. Applying the divergence theorem to this vector field givesThis holds for every constant vector $\mathbf{a}$, so the vector integrals agree. This is the vector gradient form of the divergence theorem. With $\varphi =z$, the gradient is the constant unit vector ${\mathbf{e}}_z$. Therefore