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In spherical coordinates in N dimensions, with the parametrization x = rθ ∈ R N with r representing a positive real radius and θ an element of the unit sphere S N−1, = + + where Δ S N−1 is the Laplace–Beltrami operator on the (N − 1)-sphere, known as the spherical Laplacian.
Once the radius is fixed, the three coordinates (r, θ, φ), known as a 3-tuple, provide a coordinate system on a sphere, typically called the spherical polar coordinates. The plane passing through the origin and perpendicular to the polar axis (where the polar angle is a right angle ) is called the reference plane (sometimes fundamental plane ).
This article uses the standard notation ISO 80000-2, which supersedes ISO 31-11, for spherical coordinates (other sources may reverse the definitions of θ and φ): . The polar angle is denoted by [,]: it is the angle between the z-axis and the radial vector connecting the origin to the point in question.
In Cartesian coordinates, the Laplacian of a function (,,) is = = = + +. The Laplacian is a measure of how much a function is changing over a small sphere centered at the point. When the Laplacian is equal to 0, the function is called a harmonic function .
Let (x, y, z) be the standard Cartesian coordinates, and (ρ, θ, φ) the spherical coordinates, with θ the angle measured away from the +Z axis (as , see conventions in spherical coordinates). As φ has a range of 360° the same considerations as in polar (2 dimensional) coordinates apply whenever an arctangent of it is taken. θ has a range ...
which is the ordinary Laplacian. In curvilinear coordinates, such as spherical or cylindrical coordinates, one obtains alternative expressions. Similarly, the Laplace–Beltrami operator corresponding to the Minkowski metric with signature (− + + +) is the d'Alembertian.
A Cartesian coordinate surface in this space is a coordinate plane; for example z = 0 defines the x-y plane. In the same space, the coordinate surface r = 1 in spherical coordinates is the surface of a unit sphere, which is curved. The formalism of curvilinear coordinates provides a unified and general description of the standard coordinate ...
In mathematics, the discrete Laplace operator is an analog of the continuous Laplace operator, defined so that it has meaning on a graph or a discrete grid.For the case of a finite-dimensional graph (having a finite number of edges and vertices), the discrete Laplace operator is more commonly called the Laplacian matrix.