Can someone help me understand orientation for vector surfaces?
From researching orientation for vector surfaces, I believe that, for CLOSED SURFACES, the upward orientation would be the side pointing away from the enclosed region, while downward would point towards the enclosed region.
However, I seem to be having problems finding information that I can understand about vector surfaces that are not closed.
Let's take a hemisphere: $z = \sqrt{16-x^2-y^2}$ as an example.
From what I think, the upwards orientation would be pointing away from the "outer" top of the hemisphere, while the downwards orientation would be pointing down from the "inner" bottom of the hemisphere.
Even though, I say this, I'm not sure whether this is actually true or more importantly WHY it would be true (if so). I'm just assuming because of the terms "upward" and "downward" which is quite faulty logic.