Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2020 / Paper 1 / 1 / b / Solution

The radial unit vector in the spherical coordinate system isThe coordinate tangent in the polar direction has length $r$, so its corresponding unit vector isDifferentiating ${\mathbf{e}}_r$ at fixed $\varphi$ therefore givesThe factor is not $r$: the corresponding scale factors of orthogonal coordinates occur in the derivative of the position vector, whereas the question differentiates its unit direction. The formula is understood away from the coordinate singularities where a complete spherical basis is not uniquely specified.