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The cross product with respect to a right-handed coordinate system. In mathematics, the cross product or vector product (occasionally directed area product, to emphasize its geometric significance) is a binary operation on two vectors in a three-dimensional oriented Euclidean vector space (named here ), and is denoted by the symbol .
Vector algebra relations — regarding operations on individual vectors such as dot product, cross product, etc. Vector calculus identities — regarding operations on vector fields such as divergence, gradient, curl, etc.
The following are important identities in vector algebra.Identities that only involve the magnitude of a vector ‖ ‖ and the dot product (scalar product) of two vectors A·B, apply to vectors in any dimension, while identities that use the cross product (vector product) A×B only apply in three dimensions, since the cross product is only defined there.
Associative operations are abundant in mathematics; in fact, many algebraic structures (such as semigroups and categories) explicitly require their binary operations to be associative. However, many important and interesting operations are non-associative; some examples include subtraction, exponentiation, and the vector cross product.
In three dimensions the cross product is invariant under the action of the rotation group, SO(3), so the cross product of x and y after they are rotated is the image of x × y under the rotation. But this invariance is not true in seven dimensions; that is, the cross product is not invariant under the group of rotations in seven dimensions, SO(7).
In linear algebra, the outer product of two coordinate vectors is the matrix whose entries are all products of an element in the first vector with an element in the second vector. If the two coordinate vectors have dimensions n and m , then their outer product is an n × m matrix.
This also relates to the handedness of the cross product; the cross product transforms as a pseudovector under parity transformations and so is properly described as a pseudovector. The dot product of two vectors is a scalar but the dot product of a pseudovector and a vector is a pseudoscalar, so the scalar triple product (of vectors) must be ...
In mathematics, the symbol × has a number of uses, including Multiplication of two numbers, where it is read as "times" or "multiplied by" [1] Cross product of two vectors, where it is usually read as "cross" Cartesian product of two sets, where it is usually read as "cross" [7]