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A scalar in physics and other areas of science is also a scalar in mathematics, as an element of a mathematical field used to define a vector space.For example, the magnitude (or length) of an electric field vector is calculated as the square root of its absolute square (the inner product of the electric field with itself); so, the inner product's result is an element of the mathematical field ...
The final column lists some special properties that some of the quantities have, such as their scaling behavior (i.e. whether the quantity is intensive or extensive), their transformation properties (i.e. whether the quantity is a scalar, vector, matrix or tensor), and whether the quantity is conserved.
A free vector is a vector quantity having an undefined support or region of application; it can be freely translated with no consequences; a displacement vector is a prototypical example of free vector. Aside from the notion of units and support, physical vector quantities may also differ from Euclidean vectors in terms of metric.
The simplest example of a vector space is the trivial one: {0}, which contains only the zero vector (see the third axiom in the Vector space article). Both vector addition and scalar multiplication are trivial. A basis for this vector space is the empty set, so that {0} is the 0-dimensional vector space over F.
Vector addition and scalar multiplication: a vector v (blue) is added to another vector w (red, upper illustration). Below, w is stretched by a factor of 2, yielding the sum v + 2 w . In mathematics and physics , a vector space (also called a linear space ) is a set whose elements, often called vectors , can be added together and multiplied ...
A scalar is an element of a field which is used to define a vector space.In linear algebra, real numbers or generally elements of a field are called scalars and relate to vectors in an associated vector space through the operation of scalar multiplication (defined in the vector space), in which a vector can be multiplied by a scalar in the defined way to produce another vector.
In mathematics, vector algebra may mean: The operations of vector addition and scalar multiplication of a vector space; The algebraic operations in vector calculus (vector analysis) – including the dot and cross products of 3-dimensional Euclidean space; Algebra over a field – a vector space equipped with a bilinear product
A vector quantity is a vector-valued physical quantity, including units of measurement and possibly a support, formulated as a directed line segment. A vector is frequently depicted graphically as an arrow connecting an initial point A with a terminal point B , [ 3 ] and denoted by A B . {\textstyle {\stackrel {\longrightarrow }{AB}}.}