Anda di halaman 1dari 6

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/624327/vector-ana...

vector analysis
Encyclopdia Britannica vector analysis, a branch of mathematics that deals with quantities that have both magnitude and direction. Some physical and geometric quantities, called scalars, can be fully dened by specifying their magnitude in suitable units of measure. Thus, mass can be expressed in grams, temperature in degrees on some scale, and time in seconds. Scalars can be represented graphically by points on some numerical scale such as a clock or thermometer. There also are quantities, called vectors, that require the specication of direction as well as magnitude. Velocity, force, and displacement are examples of vectors. A vector [1] quantity can be represented graphically by a directed line segment, symbolized by an arrow pointing in the direction of the vector quantity, with the length of the segment representing the magnitude of the vector.

Vector algebra.
A prototype of a vector is a directed line segment AB (see Figure 1) that can be thought to represent the displacement of a particle from its initial position A to a new position B. To distinguish vectors from scalars it is customary to denote vectors by boldface letters. Thus the vector AB in Figure 1 can be denoted by a and its length (or magnitude) by |a|. In many problems the location of the initial point of a vector is immaterial, so that two vectors are regarded as equal if they have the same length and the same direction. The equality of two vectors a and b is denoted by the usual symbolic notation a = b, and useful denitions of the elementary algebraic operations on vectors are suggested by geometry. Thus, if AB = a in Figure 1 represents a displacement of a particle from A to B and subsequently the particle is moved to a position C, so that BC = b, it is clear that the displacement from A to C can be accomplished by a single displacement AC = c. Thus, it is logical to write a + b = c. This construction of the sum, c, of a and b yields the same result as the parallelogram law in which the resultant c is given by the diagonal AC of the parallelogram constructed on vectors AB and AD as sides. Since the location of the initial

1 de 6

16/03/12 10:03

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/624327/vector-ana...

point B of the vector BC = b is immaterial, it follows that BC = AD. Figure 1 shows that AD + DC = AC, so that the commutative law [2]

holds for vector addition. Also, it is easy to show that the associative law [3]

is valid, and hence the parentheses in (2) can be omitted without any ambiguities. If s is a scalar, sa or as is dened to be a vector whose length is |s||a| and whose direction is that of a when s is positive and opposite to that of a if s is negative. Thus, a and -a are vectors equal in magnitude but opposite in direction. The foregoing denitions and the well-known properties of scalar numbers (represented by s and t) show that

Inasmuch as the laws (1), (2), and (3) are identical with those encountered in ordinary algebra, it is quite proper to use familiar algebraic rules to solve systems of linear equations [4] containing vectors. This fact makes it possible to deduce by purely algebraic means many theorems of synthetic Euclidean geometry [5] that require complicated geometric constructions.

Products of vectors.
The multiplication of vectors leads to two types of products, the dot product [6] and the cross product [7]. The dot or scalar product of two vectors a and b, written ab, is a real number [8] |a||b| cos (a,b), where (a,b) denotes the angle between the directions of a and b. Geometrically,

If a and b are at right angles then ab = 0, and if neither a nor b is a zero vector then the

2 de 6

16/03/12 10:03

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/624327/vector-ana...

vanishing of the dot product shows the vectors to be perpendicular. If a = b then cos (a,b) = 1, and aa = |a|2 gives the square of the length of a. The associative, commutative, and distributive laws [9] of elementary algebra [10] are valid for the dot multiplication of vectors. The cross or vector product of two vectors a and b, written a b, is the vector

where n is a vector of unit length perpendicular to the plane of a and b and so directed that a right-handed screw rotated from a toward b will advance in the direction of n (see Figure 2). If a and b are parallel, a b = 0. The magnitude of a b can be represented by the area of the parallelogram having a and b as adjacent sides. Also, since rotation from b to a is opposite to that from a to b,

This shows that the cross product is not commutative, but the associative law (sa) b = s(a b) and the distributive law

are valid for cross products.

Coordinate systems.
Since empirical laws [11] of physics [12] do not depend on special or accidental choices of reference frames selected to represent physical relations and geometric congurations, vector analysis forms an ideal tool for the study of the physical universe. The introduction of a special reference frame [13] or coordinate system [14] establishes a correspondence between vectors and sets of numbers representing the components of vectors in that frame, and it induces denite rules of operation on these sets of numbers that follow from the rules for operations on the line segments. If some particular set of three noncollinear vectors (termed base vectors) is selected, then any vector A can be expressed uniquely as the diagonal of the parallelepiped whose edges are the components of A in the directions of the base vectors. In common use is a

3 de 6

16/03/12 10:03

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/624327/vector-ana...

set of three mutually orthogonal unit vectors (i.e., vectors of length 1) i, j, k directed along the axes of the familiar Cartesian reference frame (see Figure 3). In this system the expression takes the form

where x, y, and z are the projections of A upon the coordinate axes. When two vectors A1 and A2 are represented as

then the use of laws (3) yields for their sum

Thus, in a Cartesian frame, the sum of A1 and A2 is the vector determined by (x1 + y1, x2 + y2, x3 + y3). Also, the dot product can be written

since

The use of law (6) yields for

so that the cross product is the vector determined by the triple of numbers appearing as the coefcients of i, j, and k in (9). If vectors are represented by 1 3 (or 3 1) matrices consisting of the components (x1,x2, x3) of the vectors, it is possible to rephrase formulas (7) through (9) in the language of matrices. Such rephrasing suggests a generalization of the concept of a vector to spaces of dimensionality higher than three. For example, the state of a gas generally depends on the pressure p, volume v, temperature T, and time t. A quadruple of numbers (p,v,T,t) cannot be represented by a point in a three-dimensional reference frame. But since geometric visualization plays no role in algebraic calculations, the gurative language of geometry can still be used by introducing a four-dimensional

4 de 6

16/03/12 10:03

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/624327/vector-ana...

reference frame determined by the set of base vectors a1,a2,a3,a4 with components determined by the rows of the matrix

A vector x is then represented in the form

so that in a four-dimensional space, every vector is determined by the quadruple of the components (x1,x2,x3,x4).

Calculus of vectors.
A particle moving in three-dimensional space can be located at each instant of time t by a position vector [15] r drawn from some xed reference point O. Since the position of the terminal point of r depends on time, r is a vector function of t. Its components in the directions of Cartesian axes, introduced at O, are the coefcients of i, j, and k in the representation

If these components are differentiable functions [16], the derivative [17] of r with respect to t is dened by the formula

which represents the velocity v of the particle. The Cartesian components of v appear as coefcients of i, j, and k in (10). If these components are also differentiable, the acceleration a = dv/dt is obtained by differentiating (10):

The rules for differentiating products of scalar functions remain valid for derivatives of the dot and cross products of vector functions, and suitable denitions of integrals of vector functions allow the construction of the calculus [18] of vectors, which has become

5 de 6

16/03/12 10:03

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/624327/vector-ana...

a basic analytic tool in physical sciences and technology.


1. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1240588/vector 2. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/129419/commutative-law 3. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/39468/associative-law 4. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/342131/linear-equation 5. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/194901/Euclidean-geometry 6. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/288565/inner-product 7. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/624362/vector-product 8. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/492990/real-number 9. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/166204/distributive-law 10. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/184192/elementary-algebra 11. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/332743/law 12. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/458757/physics 13. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/495116/reference-frame 14. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/136400/coordinate-system 15. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/471784/position-vector 16. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/162882/differentiable-function 17. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/158518/derivative 18. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/89161/calculus

6 de 6

16/03/12 10:03

Anda mungkin juga menyukai