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The cross product of vectors and is a vector perpendicular to the plane spanned by and with the direction given by the right-hand rule: If you put the index of your right hand on and the middle finger on , then the thumb points in the direction of .
The cross product a × b is defined as a vector c that is perpendicular (orthogonal) to both a and b, with a direction given by the right-hand rule [1] and a magnitude equal to the area of the parallelogram that the vectors span. [2] The cross product is defined by the formula [8] [9]
The cross product and curl are defined, by convention, according to the right hand rule, but could have been just as easily defined in terms of a left-hand rule. The entire body of physics that deals with (right-handed) pseudovectors and the right hand rule could be replaced by using (left-handed) pseudovectors and the left hand rule without issue.
2.7 Cross product rule. ... On the other hand, ... The figure to the right is a mnemonic for some of these identities. The abbreviations used are:
The following are important identities in vector algebra.Identities that only involve the magnitude of a vector ‖ ‖ and the dot product (scalar product) of two vectors A·B, apply to vectors in any dimension, while identities that use the cross product (vector product) A×B only apply in three dimensions, since the cross product is only defined there.
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For an oriented surface, the normal is usually determined by the right-hand rule or its analog in higher dimensions. If the normal is constructed as the cross product of tangent vectors (as described in the text above), it is a pseudovector .
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