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In mathematics, the dot product or scalar product [note 1] is an algebraic operation that takes two equal-length sequences of numbers (usually coordinate vectors), and returns a single number. In Euclidean geometry , the dot product of the Cartesian coordinates of two vectors is widely used.
Inner product spaces generalize Euclidean vector spaces, in which the inner product is the dot product or scalar product of Cartesian coordinates. Inner product spaces of infinite dimension are widely used in functional analysis. Inner product spaces over the field of complex numbers are sometimes referred to as unitary spaces.
The scalar triple product (also called the mixed product, box product, or triple scalar product) is defined as the dot product of one of the vectors with the cross product of the other two. Geometric interpretation
A scalar is an element of a field which is used to define a vector space.In linear algebra, real numbers or generally elements of a field are called scalars and relate to vectors in an associated vector space through the operation of scalar multiplication (defined in the vector space), in which a vector can be multiplied by a scalar in the defined way to produce another vector.
The tensor product of two vector spaces is a vector space that is defined up to an isomorphism.There are several equivalent ways to define it. Most consist of defining explicitly a vector space that is called a tensor product, and, generally, the equivalence proof results almost immediately from the basic properties of the vector spaces that are so defined.
It follows that if the scalar product of two vectors is zero, then one of these, at least, must be space-like. The scalar product of two space-like vectors can be positive or negative as can be seen by considering the product of two space-like vectors having orthogonal spatial components and times either of different or the same signs.
A scalar in physics and other areas of science is also a scalar in mathematics, as an element of a mathematical field used to define a vector space.For example, the magnitude (or length) of an electric field vector is calculated as the square root of its absolute square (the inner product of the electric field with itself); so, the inner product's result is an element of the mathematical field ...
dot product In mathematics, the dot product or scalar product [note 1] is an algebraic operation that takes two equal-length sequences of numbers (usually coordinate vectors) and returns a single number.