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Compute The Cross (Vector) Product of Two Vectors

This document provides examples of computing vector operations including: 1) Computing the cross product of two vectors to find a vector perpendicular to both. 2) Finding unit vectors perpendicular to two given vectors by computing their cross product. 3) Computing the area of a triangle using the magnitude of the cross product of two edge vectors. 4) Computing volumes of geometric objects like parallelepipeds and pyramids by taking determinants and cross products of edge vectors.

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33 views1 page

Compute The Cross (Vector) Product of Two Vectors

This document provides examples of computing vector operations including: 1) Computing the cross product of two vectors to find a vector perpendicular to both. 2) Finding unit vectors perpendicular to two given vectors by computing their cross product. 3) Computing the area of a triangle using the magnitude of the cross product of two edge vectors. 4) Computing volumes of geometric objects like parallelepipeds and pyramids by taking determinants and cross products of edge vectors.

Uploaded by

kkkraja
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Compute the cross (vector) product of two vectors

Example: Given a = i − j + 3k and b = −2i + 3j + k, compute a × b.


Solution: a × b is equal to

i j k

1 −1 3 = (−1 − 9, −(1 + 6), 3 − 2) = (−10, −7, 1).

−2 3

1

Find unit vectors perpendicular to two given vectors


Example: Given a = i + 2j + 3k and b = 2i + 3j + 5k, find two unit vectors perpendicular to both
a and b.
Solution: Note that a × b is perpendicular to both a and b. First compute
a × b = (10 − 9, −(5 − 6), 3 − 4) = (1, 1, −1).
Thus the two desired unit vectors are
a×b 1 1 −1 −1 −1 1
   
= √ ,√ ,√ and √ , √ , √ .
|a × b| 3 3 3 3 3 3

Compute areas
Example: Find the area of the triangle with vertices P (1, 1, 0), Q(1, 0, 1) and R(0, 1, 1).
Solution: Set a = P Q = (0, −1, 1) and b = P R = (−1, 0, 1). Thus the area is
√
|a × b| |(−1, −1, −1) 3
= 2= .
2 | 2

Compute volumes
Example: Find the volume of the parallelepiped with adjacent edges OP , OQ and OR, where
P (1, 1, 0), Q(1, 0, 1) and R(0, 1, 1) are three points. Also find the volume of the pyramid with
vertices O, P, Q and R.
Solution: Set a = OP = (1, 1, 0), b = OQ = (1, 0, 1) and c = OR = (0, 1, 1). Then the volume of
the parallelepiped is |a · (b × c)|. First compute

1 1 0

a · (b × c) = 1 0 1 = 0 − (0 + 1 + 1) = −2.


0 1 1

Thus the volume of the parallelepiped is 2.


The volume of the pyramid is one sixth of the volume of the parallelepiped, and so it 13 .

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