In mathematics, a surface integral is a definite integral taken over a surface. It can be thought of as the double integral analog of the line integral. Given a surface, one may integrate over its scalar fields (that is, functions which return scalars as values), and vector fields (that is, functions which return vectors as values).
Surface integrals have applications in physics, particularly with the classical theory of electromagnetism.
Read more about Surface Integral: Surface Integrals of Scalar Fields, Surface Integrals of Vector Fields, Surface Integrals of Differential 2-forms, Theorems Involving Surface Integrals, Advanced Issues
Famous quotes containing the words surface and/or integral:
“And yet we constantly reclaim some part of that primal spontaneity through the youngest among us, not only through their sorrow and anger but simply through everyday discoveries, life unwrapped. To see a child touch the piano keys for the first time, to watch a small body slice through the surface of the water in a clean dive, is to experience the shock, not of the new, but of the familiar revisited as though it were strange and wonderful.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“An island always pleases my imagination, even the smallest, as a small continent and integral portion of the globe. I have a fancy for building my hut on one. Even a bare, grassy isle, which I can see entirely over at a glance, has some undefined and mysterious charm for me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)