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It is then determined by the coordinates of that bound vector's terminal point. Thus the free vector represented by (1, 0, 0) is a vector of unit length—pointing along the direction of the positive x-axis. This coordinate representation of free vectors allows their algebraic features to be expressed in a convenient numerical fashion.
The most basic example is the flat Euclidean plane, an idealization of a flat surface in physical space such as a sheet of paper or a chalkboard. On the Euclidean plane, any two points can be joined by a unique straight line along which the distance can be measured.
In mathematics and physics, vector notation is a commonly used notation for representing vectors, [1] [2] which may be Euclidean vectors, or more generally, members of a vector space. For denoting a vector, the common typographic convention is lower case, upright boldface type, as in v .
In the natural sciences, a vector quantity (also known as a vector physical quantity, physical vector, or simply vector) is a vector-valued physical quantity. [9] [10] It is typically formulated as the product of a unit of measurement and a vector numerical value (), often a Euclidean vector with magnitude and direction.
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.
Three line segments with the same direction. In geometry, direction, also known as spatial direction or vector direction, is the common characteristic of all rays which coincide when translated to share a common endpoint; equivalently, it is the common characteristic of vectors (such as the relative position between a pair of points) which can be made equal by scaling (by some positive scalar ...
Cartesian coordinates identify points of the Euclidean plane with pairs of real numbers. In mathematics, the real coordinate space or real coordinate n-space, of dimension n, denoted R n or , is the set of all ordered n-tuples of real numbers, that is the set of all sequences of n real numbers, also known as coordinate vectors.
The selection of an origin and a basis define a unit cell, a parallelotope (i.e., generalization of a parallelogram (2D) or parallelepiped (3D) in higher dimensions) defined by the lattice basis vectors ,, …, where is the dimension of the space.