Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Vector Analysis

The purpose of vector analysis is to acquire a thorough understanding of the mathematical methods required to deal with fields.

Mathematically, a field is a function that describes a physical quantity at all points in space. In scalar fields this physical quantity is completely specified by a single number for each point. For vector fields both a number and a direction are required.

A vector can be specified by its components:
scalar (or dot) product:

vector (or cross) product:




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