Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2024 / Paper 1 / 1 / c

The divergence of a cross product and $\nabla \times \mathbf{a}=0$ give $\nabla \cdot (\mathbf{a}\times \mathbf{A})=-\mathbf{a}\cdot (\nabla \times \mathbf{A})$. On the boundary the scalar triple product gives $(\mathbf{a}\times \mathbf{A})\cdot \hat{\mathbf{n}}=-\mathbf{a}\cdot (\hat{\mathbf{n}}\times \mathbf{A})$. Thus the divergence theorem givesBecause $\mathbf{a}$ is arbitrary, the curl identity follows: