2162018 ‘geometry - What does the dot praduct of two vactors eprasent? - Mathematics Stack Exchange: %% MATHEMATICS Mathematics Sta people studying math at any level and professionals in related in them; it only takes a minute: xchange Is a question and answ Sign up Here's how it works: ody can ask a question The best answ are voled up and rise to the top What does the dot product of two vectors represent? T know how to calculate the dot product of two vectors alright. However, it is not clear tome what, exactly, does the dot product represent. The produet of two numbers, 2 and 3, we say that itis 2 added to itself 3 times or something like that. But when it comes to vectors @ - 6, I'm not sure what to say. "Itis @ added to itself 6 times" which doesn't make much sense to me. geometry vectors By using our site, you acknow ind our Cookie Policy, Privacy Policy, and hitps:i/math stackexchange.com/questions/805954\what-does-the-dot-product-oftwowectors-represent wm2162018 By using ‘geometry - What does the dot praduct of two vactors eprasent? - Mathematics Stack Exchange: Adding a to itself b times (6 being a number) is another operation, called the scalar product. The dot product involves two vectors and yields a number. — ‘Yves Daoust May 22 "14 at 22:40 7 8 Answers The dot product tells you what amount of one vector goes in the direction of another. For instance, if you pulled a box 10 meters at an inclined angle, there is a horizontal component and a vertical component to your force vector. So the dot product in this case ‘would give you the amount of force g¢ the direction of the displacement, or in the direction that the box moved. This is important because work is defined to be force multiplied by displacement, but the force here is defined to be the force in the direction of the displacement. hitp://youtu.be/KDHu Wxys3uM gin ited May 2214 at 22:38 swored May 22'14 at 22:33 King Squirrel 12832 «13° 32 you acknowle /ou have read and understand our hitps:i/math stackexchange.com/questions/805954Mhat-does-the-dot-product-oftwoectors-represent and am2162018 By using ‘geometry - What does the dot praduct of two vactors eprasent? - Mathematics Stack Exchange: veetor you are projecting onto has unit length, otherwise you are getting the ‘component of vector 1 along vector 2 scaled by the length of vector 2— Vitale May 2214 at 22:52 Work is a good ‘example of magnitude ‘as well as direction. W F-D, i.e work is the scalar product of the force and displacement vectors (assuming constant force and direction). — ‘Tom Collinge May 23 “14 at 7337 7 1. This answer is vague. As rVitale points out, your first sentence is only true ifthe “other” vector isa unit vector. When you say "[pull] a box 10 meters at an inclined angle", you need to be clearer ‘about what the two vectors are: presumably, you mean the force vector and the vector along which the box moves. ~ David Richerby May 23°14 at 9:08 3 Obviously it helped the OP. The criticism of the King is blasphemous. — King Squirrel May 23 “14 at 13:05 ‘Oh this makes sense now. The dot product is zero when they're orthogonal because they don't have any ‘common component! Kenneth Worden Sep 1315 at 18:08, Tt might help to think of multiplication of real have read and understand our you acknow hitps:i/math stackexchange.com/questions/805954Mhat-does-the-dot-product-oftwoectors-represent and am2162018 ‘geometry - What does the dot praduct of two vactors eprasent? - Mathematics Stack Exchange: starting with an interval of length 3 and then stretching the line by a factor of 2. For dot product, in addition to this stretching idea, you need another geometric idea, namely projection. Imagine the line L parallel to 6 through the origin O. Now imagine projecting from the tip of the vector a, along a line perpendicular to L, until hitting Z at a point P. The dot product ab is the length of the line segment you get by starting with the line segment OP and then stretching the plane by a factor equal to the length of b. I'm being a little careless about plus and minus signs, but those can be incorporated into this picture too. Ited Jan 11 at 16:43, swered May 2214 at 22:38 3 Lee Mosher Barsk 3 36 81 1 What's the importance of this? What do we get from the product? I mean why we are so interested in finding this dot product? — Wasiq Noor Jul 24 at 2:26 hitps:i/math stackexchange.com/questions/805954\what-does-the-dot-product-oftwowectors-represent an2162018 ‘geometry - What does the dot praduct of two vactors eprasent? - Mathematics Stack Exchange: length of @ and 6 respectively, then (aii) - (bu) this is a pretty natural property for a product to have. a8 ab Now as for ti -@ this is equal to cos 8, where @ is the angle between ti and @. As King Squirrel notes, this is also the length of the projection of i onto the line through @, and also the length of the projection of # onto the line through w. So altogether we get a-b = ab cos, and it has the interpretation in terms of projecting one vector onto another that King Squirrel discusses. ted Apr 26°17 at 19:58 Jc xine Am 6 swered May 22°14 at 22:39 Bp Mane 104k 8 214 378 does this meaning have any remnant when used over F,? Brout Dec 914 at 718 Geometric Meaning hitps:i/math stackexchange.com/questions/805954Mhat-does-the-dot-product-oftwoectors-represent sit2162018 ‘geometry - What does the dot praduct of two vactors eprasent? - Mathematics Stack Exchange: product @ - bis related to the angle @ between @ and 6 through: G-B=|[al\, ||Bl|, cos8 Assumming that a and b point into the similar directions, i.e. <= 180", we can visualize what this, relationship means (skipping the vector arrows and Euclidean norm subseript from now on): pis the vector resulting from a orthogonal projection of a onto b. As the cos the ratio between adjacent leg (p) and hypothenuse (a) in the right triangle cos = lial] ‘we get for the inner product: IP. a6 al 6 BP = So, the inner produet is the length of the vector p, the projection of a onto 6, multiplied by the length of b. Ifa and 6 point into opposite directions, ie. 9 > 90°, the dot product will be the negative: a-b=—|[p||/b|| Derivation hitps:i/math stackexchange.com/questions/805954\what-does-the-dot-product-oftwowectors-represent an2162018 ‘geometry - What does the dot praduct of two vactors eprasent? - Mathematics Stack Exchange: angle 0 is not inherently given. By definition, a:b Yat, So we need to find a link between this and the cosine. From the definition of the dot product, we can see that it scales proportionally with the input veetors, so for non-unit vectors u and v with the corresponding unit vectors ti and #: So, for simplicity, we will assume a and 6 to be unit vectors. Thus, we only need to show |u|] -a-o a-b=cos@ or by the definition of cos, we need to show a-b= | [pil So let's caleulate the length of the projection pusing a and b. We can start by using the Pythagorean theorem: Upl|? = |la\|* Now, we need to calculate the length of ¢ using the other rectangular triangle: 2 2 ell” = lal” — {Iel| — hitps:i/math stackexchange.com/questions/805954Mhat-does-the-dot-product-oftwoectors-represent am2162018 ‘geometry - What does the dot praduct of two vactors eprasent? - Mathematics Stack Exchange: Replacing the squared Euclidean norms with sums: lipll? = Sa? -— Sa, Now, we get the |[p|| out of the sum as it is a scalar: (ell? = 3a? — Sa, Expanding the binomials: ipl? = Soa Sa Making use of the fact that bis a unit vector and thus >, 6? = 1: Iipll? = $7 2a,b; — 2liz ‘This finaly gives us Ill = abi qed ited Nov 21 at 14:16 swered Jan 31 at 12:35 Kilian Batzner 19 1 3 T think of dot product as the "same-ness" of two vectors. If two vectors are orthogonal (90 degrees on one another) they are ‘not at all the same’ (dot product =o), and if they are parallel hitps:i/math stackexchange.com/questions/805954Mhat-does-the-dot-product-oftwoectors-represent an2162018 ‘geometry - What does the dot praduct of two vactors reprasent? - Mathematics Stack Exchange: roduct of their magnitude, that is the argument for a cosine- function to find the angle between them. My application for the dot product is finding the angle between two vectors for calculating the force required to pull a cable through two or more pipes with a bend. It's hard to do this ina three dimensional world without knowing how to calculate the dot product. Math makes life really easy :) swered Mar 16°16 at 14:13 Roly Marius m1 4 Dot product is the product of magnitudes of 2 vectors with the Cosine of the angle between them. You can take the smaller or the larger angle between the vectors. That is if theta is the angle then you can take (360-theta) as well. Geometrically, it will also be equal to (read it slowly) the product of, “projection” of magnitude of one vector on the other and the magnitude of the and vector. In Physics, as an example, Mechanical Work is a scalar and a result of dot product of force and displacement vectors. Like-wise, hitps:i/math stackexchange.com/questions/805954Mhat-does-the-dot-product-oftwoectors-represent om2162018 ‘geometry - What does the dot praduct of two vactors reprasent? - Mathematics Stack Exchange: Dot produet is a scalar quantity. Watch this video that I have made to understand this better- ‘What is Dot Product of Vectors swored Dec 29'17 at 8:24 Vish n 2 The dot product of two vectors u,v is the area of the parallelogram u,v" where v' is v rotated by 90 degrees. swored Oct 16 at 0:41 eT utes my 255 1 8 When directions are considered, we essentially bring a new dimension to the perception of the entity, (Speed vs Velocity: 5km/h vs skm/h towards east). Bringing the sense of direction, the question arises, how the entities interact? In dot product, diagrammatically, what we find is, essentially, the area that is affected by the two entities taken together. Consider ‘Tetris. You have built a foundation already. Now, a new part is falling and you have the arrow keys to hitps:i/math stackexchange.com/questions/805954Mhat-does-the-dot-product-oftwoectors-represent sor2162018 ‘geometry - What does the dot praduct of two vactors reprasent? - Mathematics Stack Exchange: will determine how the new part is arranged. The area covered by the falling part would be determined by the dot product of the said vectors. swored May 23°14 at 6:34 » Prateek 1 hitps:i/math stackexchange.com/questions/805954\what-does-the-dot-product-oftwowectors-represent wn