Let be a smooth (differentiable) two-component vector field (or the pair of functions ) on the two dimensional space then the line integral of the field projection onto the unite length vector anti-clockwise field always smoothly tangent to the closed curved over the arbitrary two dimensional closed curve equals the integral of the difference of the partial derivatives , and over the plane region bounded inside the curve or otherwise the outside of the curve values of the field make virtually no contributions to the integral over the region providing that the field is sufficiently smooth that the second derivatives of the field components exists in the region i.e.

where and is the region enclosed by the curve .

Proof

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We can approximate the integral on the right side over the region by the finite sum by dividing densely the space around the region   into small squares with the sides   and the vertices   and approximating the bounding curve   of the region by the sides of squares which are the closet to the curve as well as the coordinate derivatives of the field   by their difference quotients. We will keep the vertices coordinate names for the convenience even if they are equal and keep the square vertices coordinate indices   even if they are limited by the region bounded by the curve.

We get

 

Now the essential in proving the theorem is to focus on the contribution to the finite sum approximating the region integral from the one component of the   field itself and notice that because of the cancelation of the sign alternating term the sums reduce to only the end points. For example for   and the fixed  -line   and its length we have

 ,

Note that while   is an infinitesimal (small) linear element of the region boundary curve parallel to the   axis and for the unite vector   parallel to it   and so for the second point with the minus sign the right side is an approximate to the growth   of the counter-clockwise line integral   i.e.

 .

Summing up all the all the   contributions over   and repeating the considerations for the field component   leading to the   contributions of the region boundary curve integral we get  

and so finally prove  .