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Also, let Q = (x 1, y 1) be any point on this line and n the vector (a, b) starting at point Q. The vector n is perpendicular to the line, and the distance d from point P to the line is equal to the length of the orthogonal projection of on n. The length of this projection is given by:
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 .
On the -dimensional Euclidean space, the intuitive notion of length of the vector = (,, …,) is captured by the formula [10] ‖ ‖:= + +. This is the Euclidean norm , which gives the ordinary distance from the origin to the point X —a consequence of the Pythagorean theorem .
By Dvoretzky's theorem, every finite-dimensional normed vector space has a high-dimensional subspace on which the norm is approximately Euclidean; the Euclidean norm is the only norm with this property. [24] It can be extended to infinite-dimensional vector spaces as the L 2 norm or L 2 distance. [25]
ρ is the length of the vector projected onto the xy-plane, φ is the angle between the projection of the vector onto the xy-plane (i.e. ρ) and the positive x-axis (0 ≤ φ < 2π), z is the regular z-coordinate. (ρ, φ, z) is given in Cartesian coordinates by:
By definition, all Euclidean vectors have a magnitude (see above). However, a vector in an abstract vector space does not possess a magnitude. A vector space endowed with a norm, such as the Euclidean space, is called a normed vector space. [8] The norm of a vector v in a normed vector space can be considered to be the magnitude of v.
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. To normalize a vector a = (a 1, a 2, a 3), scale the vector by the reciprocal of its length ‖a‖. That is:
In mathematics, a unit vector in a normed vector space is a vector (often a spatial vector) of length 1. A unit vector is often denoted by a lowercase letter with a circumflex, or "hat", as in ^ (pronounced "v-hat"). The normalized vector û of a non-zero vector u is the unit vector in the direction of u, i.e.,