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The vector equation for a line is = + where is a unit vector in the direction of the line, is a point on the line, and is a scalar in the real number domain. Substituting the equation for the line into the equation for the plane gives
Illustration of the vector formulation. The equation of a line can be given in vector form: = + Here a is the position of a point on the line, and n is a unit vector in the direction of the line. Then as scalar t varies, x gives the locus of the line.
Using this form, vertical lines correspond to equations with b = 0. One can further suppose either c = 1 or c = 0, by dividing everything by c if it is not zero. There are many variant ways to write the equation of a line which can all be converted from one to another by algebraic manipulation. The above form is sometimes called the standard form.
The vector projection (also known as the vector component or vector resolution) of a vector a on (or onto) a nonzero vector b is the orthogonal projection of a onto a straight line parallel to b. The projection of a onto b is often written as proj b a {\displaystyle \operatorname {proj} _{\mathbf {b} }\mathbf {a} } or a ∥ b .
In geometry, an intersection is a point, line, or curve common to two or more objects (such as lines, curves, planes, and surfaces). The simplest case in Euclidean geometry is the line–line intersection between two distinct lines, which either is one point (sometimes called a vertex) or does not exist (if the lines are parallel). Other types ...
In three dimensions a line is represented by the intersection of two planes, each of which has an equation of the form [] [] =. Thus a set of n lines can be represented by 2n equations in the 3-dimensional coordinate vector w:
A free vector is a vector quantity having an undefined support or region of application; it can be freely translated with no consequences; a displacement vector is a prototypical example of free vector. Aside from the notion of units and support, physical vector quantities may also differ from Euclidean vectors in terms of metric.
A unit vector is any vector with a length of one; normally unit vectors are used simply to indicate direction. A vector of arbitrary length can be divided by its length to create a unit vector. [14] This is known as normalizing a vector. A unit vector is often indicated with a hat as in â.