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Also, let Q = (x 1, y 1) be any point on this line and n the vector (a, b) starting at point Q. The vector n is perpendicular to the line, and the distance d from point P to the line is equal to the length of the orthogonal projection of on n. The length of this projection is given by:
On the -dimensional Euclidean space, the intuitive notion of length of the vector = (,, …,) is captured by the formula [10] ‖ ‖:= + +. This is the Euclidean norm , which gives the ordinary distance from the origin to the point X —a consequence of the Pythagorean theorem .
By Dvoretzky's theorem, every finite-dimensional normed vector space has a high-dimensional subspace on which the norm is approximately Euclidean; the Euclidean norm is the only norm with this property. [24] It can be extended to infinite-dimensional vector spaces as the L 2 norm or L 2 distance. [25]
The length of the curve is given by the formula = | ′ | where | ′ | is the Euclidean norm of the tangent vector ′ to the curve. To justify this formula, define the arc length as limit of the sum of linear segment lengths for a regular partition of [ a , b ] {\displaystyle [a,b]} as the number of segments approaches infinity.
A vector of arbitrary length can be divided by its length to create a unit vector. [14] This is known as normalizing a vector. A unit vector is often indicated with a hat as in â. To normalize a vector a = (a 1, a 2, a 3), scale the vector by the reciprocal of its length ‖a‖. That is:
The vector projection (also known as the vector component or vector resolution) of a vector a on (or onto) a nonzero vector b is the orthogonal projection of a onto a straight line parallel to b. The projection of a onto b is often written as proj b a {\displaystyle \operatorname {proj} _{\mathbf {b} }\mathbf {a} } or a ∥ b .
T is the unit vector tangent to the curve, pointing in the direction of motion. N is the normal unit vector, the derivative of T with respect to the arclength parameter of the curve, divided by its length. B is the binormal unit vector, the cross product of T and N.
A normal vector of length one is called a unit normal vector. A curvature vector is a normal vector whose length is the curvature of the object. Multiplying a normal vector by −1 results in the opposite vector, which may be used for indicating sides (e.g., interior or exterior).