I seem to be having a problem distinguishing between a vector space (which I know to be a set of vectors over some scalar set) and a vector field. I know that in Multivariable Calculus a vector field is a vector-valued function (being a derivative for conserved fields.) I feel they are different but how does one explain in layman terms the difference between the two?
[Math] Vector space or vector field
linear algebramultivariable-calculusVector Fieldsvector-spaces
Best Answer
Informally, you can imagine a vector field as a collection of little floating "arrows" attached to points in space. For example, a vector field might represent the velocity of the air in a room: at each point in space, you can ask the question "How fast and in what direction is the wind moving at this point?", and represent that with a vector that is "pinned" (so to speak) to that point in space. The room is then "filled" with little arrows, one at every possible location. The wind velocity at one location is not necessarily the same at another location, so these vectors are not all the same. Nor is it meaningful to "add" vectors that are attached to different points in the room, so the individual vectors don't live in a single vector space.
On the other hand, if you pick a single point in the room, and ask the question "What are all the possible wind velocities at this location?" then you have a vector space. At that one point, there are possible vectors pointing in every direction and with every length. Adding those vectors together is a meaningful operation. At each individual point, there is a vector space associated with that point.
So informally, a vector field can be thought of as choosing, at each point in the underlying space, a single vector from the vector space at that point.