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Some notation

Vectors are usually given a name just like variables and then are written with an arrow over the name, such as tex2html_wrap_inline521 to distinguish it from the scalar variable w which only holds one piece of information. If a vector ``lives'' in an n-dimensional world (in other words, it is a list of n different real numbers) then we write `` tex2html_wrap_inline529 '' to let us know that

  1. tex2html_wrap_inline521 is a vector,
  2. tex2html_wrap_inline521 contains n different pieces of information, and
  3. each of the n pieces of information is a sinlge real number.

Vectors can live in spaces other than tex2html_wrap_inline539 , but usually this space will be good enough for us, especially since vectors in this space have a very nice graphical interpretation.



Vector Calculus
Mon Jul 14 10:10:30 MST 1997