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Del followed by a dot, measuring outward flow from a point.
Also known as: Divergence of a vector field, Del dot, Divergence operator
The dot after del is a dot product, not punctuation: ∇·F multiplies the derivative vector by the field vector and produces a single number at each point. Where that number is positive the field is flowing out of the point, which is the whole of the word 'divergence'.
Denotes the divergence of a vector field: the dot product of the del operator with the field, giving a scalar at each point.
Contexts: Mathematics
Is also written 'div F' in older and engineering texts; the two notations mean exactly the same operation.
Contexts: Mathematics
An inverted triangle followed by a centred dot at mid-height, then the name of a field.