Vectors in the plane Linear Algebra

Newbatmath
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Homework Statement



Which of the below vectors are A). Orthogonal B.) in the same direction C). in opposite directions

Homework Equations



Vectors:

u1 = (1,2) u2 = (0,1) u3 = (-2,-4) u4 = (-2,1) u5 = (2,4) u6 = (-6,3)

The Attempt at a Solution



The text told me how to find if two vectors are orthogonal, (u*v = 0), but I don't know the procedure to use when 6 vectors are involved. :confused:

They never mentioned directions at all. :( I'm assuming it just refers to the graph running in either the same or opposite directions?

Thanks for your help!

Newb... (really!)
 
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Since you are asked which of these vectors are orthogonal, it is meant to check this property for every possible pair of vectors in your given set.

Also, "to be in the same direction" means "to be linearly dependent".
 
For the first one, that's exactly what they want you to do: find pairs of vectors which are orthogonal. So just take the dot product of every pair you can find and check which ones give 0.

I don't know what you mean by "graph," but you can draw a vector as an arrow. When you draw two vectors like, for example (1, 1) and (2, 2), you will see that the arrows point in the same direction. In other words, the vectors are along a line.
On the other hand, if you draw (1, 2) and (-2, -4) you will see that, although they still lie along the same line, the arrows are pointed exactly opposite to each other. This is what they mean by "same" and "opposite" directions
 
For each vector, determine if it is meets the criteria with respect to either of the other vectors, and note which ones.

The direction of a vector is uniquely determined by the corresponding normalized vector. A normalized vector is an unit vector, and thus has length equal to 1. Two vectors point in the same direction if they, when normalized, are equal. They point in the opposite direction if each component of one of the normalized vectors is equal to the negative of the same component of the other normalized vector. Normalizing a vector means dividing each component by the vector's norm (its length).

(Edit: he beat me to it)
 
There are two things I don't understand about this problem. First, when finding the nth root of a number, there should in theory be n solutions. However, the formula produces n+1 roots. Here is how. The first root is simply ##\left(r\right)^{\left(\frac{1}{n}\right)}##. Then you multiply this first root by n additional expressions given by the formula, as you go through k=0,1,...n-1. So you end up with n+1 roots, which cannot be correct. Let me illustrate what I mean. For this...
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