What does î(o) represent in vectors?

[Kavya Chopra]

This problem is fairly objective (though quite stupid)
What does î(o) represent?
Does it refer to a vector making angle 0 degrees with the x axis?
I searched but couldn't find the answer anywhere. Please help.

Moderator note: post edited and moved from hoemwork

 

[gneill]

Can you provide some context where you've seen this notation used?

 

[jedishrfu]

Can you provide some context here? What book or video used this notation?

My guess would be the i represents the unit vector in th x direction and the 0 represents the x component of the vector. Similarly for y using j and z using k.

The notation came initially from quaternion notation. Quaternions were extensions of complex numbers into 3 dimensions. When Gibbs and others decided that quaternion math was useful but overly complicated they extracted out the useful part to make vectors and kept the ijk notation.

 

[fresh_42]

What does î(o) represent?

Did you mean î(o) or $i^0\,$? And is it an o or a 0?

 

[Kavya Chopra]

Î(o). o not 0.

 

[Kavya Chopra]

Can you provide some context where you've seen this notation used?

I came across this while I was doing some questions on vectors.

 

[FactChecker]

In general, these types of notation need to be defined in the document or book that they appear in. There is no standard meaning of the notation. If the document/book is well done, there will be a summary of notation somewhere. Otherwise, you are forced to scan through the preceding text and try to spot the definition. I always hated the books that required that.

 

[Kavya Chopra]

I see. Thanks a lot.