Section 16.6 : Conservative Vector Fields
1. Determine if the following vector field is conservative.
\[\vec F = \left( {{x^3} - 4x{y^2} + 2} \right)\vec i + \left( {6x - 7y + {x^3}{y^3}} \right)\vec j\] Show SolutionThere really isn’t all that much to do with this problem. All we need to do is identify \(P\) and \(Q\) then run through the test.
So,
\[\begin{align*}P & = {x^3} - 4x{y^2} + 2 & \hspace{0.5in}{P_y} & = - 8xy\\ Q & = 6x - 7y + {x^3}{y^3} & \hspace{0.5in}{Q_x} & = 6 + 3{x^2}{y^3}\end{align*}\]Okay, we can clearly see that \({P_y} \ne {Q_x}\) and so the vector field is not conservative.