Why is the normal transformation a inverse transpose? (3)

The difference between normal vectors and usual vectors

Actually, normal vectors and usual vectors are different type of vectors. A usual vector itself defines direction or position. Let's recall how the normal vector is defined. A normal vector is not defined by itself. First a face is defined using usual vectors, then, the normal vector is defined according to this surface. The definition of the normal vector is a unit vector that perpendicular to the surface, in other words, it is defined as the inner product of surface tangent vector and the normal vector is 0. We should think these vectors are different vectors when they follow a transformation. As we saw in the Figure 1, when we transform a normal vector, the meaning of normal is lost. If we consider this vector is a usual vector, twice large x component is still fine, just it is not normal anymore. In this sense, normal vector has a special meaning, that should be always perpendicular to the surface.

The following three sections, we will see this problem more deeply. All three explanations are mathematically the same, but I think each has a slightly different intuition, so I will write all the three explanations.

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Why A^{T}A is invertible? (2) Linear Algebra

Why A^{T}A has the inverse Let me explain why A^{T}A has the inverse, if the columns of A are independent. First, if a matrix is n by n, and all the columns are independent, then this is a square full rank matrix. Therefore, there is the inverse. So, the problem is when A is a m by n, rectangle matrix. Strang's explanation is based on null space. Null space and column space are the fundamental of the linear algebra. This explanation is simple and clear. However, when I was a University student, I did not recall the explanation of the null space in my linear algebra class. Maybe I was careless. I regret that... Explanation based on null space This explanation is based on Strang's book. Column space and null space are the main characters. Let's start with this explanation. Assume x where x is in the null space of A . The matrices ( A^{T} A ) and A share the null space as the following: This means, if x is in the null space of A , x is also in the n...

Gauss's quote for positive, negative, and imaginary number

Recently I watched the following great videos about imaginary numbers by Welch Labs. https://youtu.be/T647CGsuOVU?list=PLiaHhY2iBX9g6KIvZ_703G3KJXapKkNaF I like this article about naming of math by Kalid Azad. https://betterexplained.com/articles/learning-tip-idea-name/ Both articles mentioned about Gauss, who suggested to use other names of positive, negative, and imaginary numbers. Gauss wrote these names are wrong and that is one of the reason people didn't get why negative times negative is positive, or, pure positive imaginary times pure positive imaginary is negative real number. I made a few videos about explaining why -1 * -1 = +1, too. Explanation: why -1 * -1 = +1 by pattern https://youtu.be/uD7JRdAzKP8 Explanation: why -1 * -1 = +1 by climbing a mountain https://youtu.be/uD7JRdAzKP8 But actually Gauss's insight is much powerful. The original is in the Gauß, Werke, Bd. 2, S. 178 . Hätte man +1, -1, √-1) nicht positiv, negative, imaginäre (oder gar um...

Why parallelogram area is |ad-bc|?

Here is my question. The area of parallelogram is the difference of these two rectangles (red rectangle - blue rectangle). This is not intuitive for me. If you also think it is not so intuitive, you might interested in my slides. I try to explain this for hight school students. Slides: A bit intuitive (for me) explanation of area of parallelogram (to my site, external link) .

Lx=d: SundayResearch

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