Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2005 / Paper 2 / 6 / Solution

Under an orthogonal Cartesian change $x_i^{\prime }=R_{ij}{x}_j$, the chain rule gives ${\partial }_i^{\prime }=(\partial x_j/\partial x_i^{\prime }){\partial }_j=R_{ij}{\partial }_j$. Thus the derivative operator transforms as a rank-one Cartesian tensor. Under a general coordinate change it has the covector transformation law when applied to a scalar; derivatives of vector components then need the usual connection terms. The calculations below use Cartesian coordinates.