Maths question - vector notation

[Live It]

Hi,

I'm currently doing some maths and there's a question involving vectors.

It says show AB is perpendicular to BC. Above "AB" and "BC" there is some sort of character which looks like three "u"s all joined together... Can anybody tell me what this means?

TIA

[jnm23]

where are you viewing this, in print or on a screen?

i think the symbol you are looking for is an arrow above the two letters (->), but sounds like it has been mis-formatted?

[TVR MAN]

Do you know what the vectors are?

As the above post says, mabye it is a mistake and it should have an arrow like this

Edited by TVR MAN on Sunday 25th January 20:17

[turnleftwhere]

I replied to this without reading it properly first time and deleted my post, you need to show that the gradient (slope) of each vector has a product of -1

[turbobloke]

Isn't the wavy line over a character or translation an alternative means of indicating a vector quantity?

[turbobloke]

Also, for those vectors the dot product will be 0.

Have you covered dot product?

[ATG]

turbobloke said:

Isn't the wavy line over a character or translation an alternative means of indicating a vector quantity?

Underneath, I think. A single wave like a tilde "~" underneath a lower case letter.

[turbobloke]

ATG said:

turbobloke said:

Isn't the wavy line over a character or translation an alternative means of indicating a vector quantity?

Underneath, I think. A single wave like a tilde "~" underneath a lower case letter.

I'm fairly sure I've seen both, above and below. Maybe it's an age thing by which I mean me

[fido]

I reckon the next question will be to find a third vector that is both perpendicular to AB {insert squiggly lines} and BC {insert squiggly lines}?

[W00DY]

ATG said:

turbobloke said:

Isn't the wavy line over a character or translation an alternative means of indicating a vector quantity?

Underneath, I think. A single wave like a tilde "~" underneath a lower case letter.

The arrow above denotes a vector. The "~" underneath denotes a unit vector, don't know about the 3 u's though.

[turbobloke]

An alternative symbol for a (unit) vector always used to be the circumflex symbol i.e. the hat or roof-shaped accent from French.

Let's hear it for standardisation

[fido]

i've never seen a ~ used - it's always been a ^ for a unit vector.

[turbobloke]

fido said:

i've never seen a ~ used - it's always been a ^ for a unit vector.

That's the one

[ATG]

W00DY said:

ATG said:

turbobloke said:

Isn't the wavy line over a character or translation an alternative means of indicating a vector quantity?

Underneath, I think. A single wave like a tilde "~" underneath a lower case letter.

The arrow above denotes a vector. The "~" underneath denotes a unit vector, don't know about the 3 u's though.

Not seen that used. As others have said a hat/circumflex "^" above a vector usually indicates unit length. This for example says the unit length vector in the direction of "a" is equal to "a" divided by its own length.

^
a = a / |a|
~   ~    ~

Edited by ATG on Sunday 25th January 22:56

[Live It]

Sorry I took so long to reply, I got distracted by the rest of the homework. Apparently the three "u"s were meant to be an arrow.

Thanks anyway.