Math Help - What is the expanded form of...

1. What is the expanded form of...

What is the expanded form of (v ∙ grad)w?

2. Originally Posted by thefrog
What is the expanded form of (v ∙ grad)w?
Since we have a dot product involving v, I assume that v is a vector but then (v- grad) evaluates to a scalar operator and w could be either a vector or a scalar.

Let $v= v_x\vec{i}+ v_y\vec{j}+ v_z\vec{k}$ and $v\cdot\nabla= v_x\frac{\partial}{\partial x}+ v_y\frac{\partial}{\partial y}+ v_z\frac{\partial}{\partial z}$

If w is a vector, $w= w_x\vec{i}+ w_y\vec{j}+ w_z\vec{k}$ then this is a scalar product- the scalar multiplying each part of the vector:
$(v_x\frac{\partial w_x}{\partial x}+ v_y\frac{\partial w_x}{\partial y}+ v_z\frac{\partial w_x}{\partial z})\vec{i}$ $+ ( v_x\frac{\partial w_y}{\partial x}+ v_y\frac{\partial w_y}{\partial y}+ v_z\frac{\partial w_y}{\partial z})\vec{j}$ $+ ( v_x\frac{\partial w_z}{\partial x}+ v_y\frac{\partial w_z}{\partial y}+ v_z\frac{\partial w_z}{\partial z})\vec{k}$

If w is a scalar function then this is a product of two scalars:
$v_x\frac{\partial w}{\partial x}+ v_y\frac{\partial w}{\partial y}+ v_z\frac{\partial w}{\partial z}$