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Concept
Bivector
Summary
In mathematics, a bivector or 2-vector is a quantity in exterior algebra or geometric algebra that extends the idea of scalars and vectors. If a scalar is considered a degree-zero quantity, and a vector is a degree-one quantity, then a bivector can be thought of as being of degree two. Bivectors have applications in many areas of mathematics and physics. They are related to complex numbers in two dimensions and to both pseudovectors and quaternions in three dimensions. They can be used to generate rotations in any number of dimensions, and are a useful tool for classifying such rotations. They are also used in physics, tying together a number of otherwise unrelated quantities.
Geometrically, a simple bivector can be interpreted as an oriented plane segment, much as vectors can be thought of as directed line segments. The bivector a ∧ b has a magnitude equal to the area of the parallelogram with edges a and b, has the orientation (or attitude) of the plane spanned by a and b, and has orientation being the sense of the rotation that would align a with b.
In layman terms, any surface is the same bivector, if it has the same area, same orientation, and is parallel to the same plane (see figure).
Bivectors are generated by the exterior product on vectors: given two vectors a and b, their exterior product a ∧ b is a bivector, as is the sum of any bivectors. Not all bivectors can be generated as a single exterior product. More precisely, a bivector that can be expressed as an exterior product is called simple; in up to three dimensions all bivectors are simple, but in higher dimensions this is not the case. The exterior product of two vectors is alternating, so b ∧ a is the negation of the bivector a ∧ b, producing the opposite orientation, and a ∧ a is the zero bivector.
The bivector was first defined in 1844 by German mathematician Hermann Grassmann in exterior algebra as the result of the exterior product of two vectors. Just the previous year, in Ireland, William Rowan Hamilton had discovered quaternions.
Official source
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