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V0ODO0CH1LD
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I keep reading about polar unit vectors, and I am a bit confused by what they mean.
In the way I like to think about it, the n-tuple representation of a vector space is just a "list" of elements from the field that I have to combine (a.k.a. perform multiplication) with the n vectors in some subset of my vector space, the basis, to result in the particular vector from the vector space I am trying to represent.
So if I have some subset B that is a basis of some vector space V, I can represent the vector λ in V as the list of scalars I have to multiply each basis vector to get λ in V.
If the polar unit vectors ## \hat{e}_r ## and ## \hat{e}_{\theta} ## are a basis to ℝ2, how does that work. I mean IF it works..
If I add the vector (1, π/4) to (1, π/4), I would expect to get (2, π/4). Since both vectors point in the same direction I should get a third vector pointing in the same direction as well. Or does the space get all distorted somehow. Like, does the equation r = θ that looks like a spiral in the cartesian coordinate system looks like a straight line with slope 1 through the origin in the polar coordinate system?
I know that the polar basis vectors rotate with the angle θ, but if the point you're trying to specify is always in the direction of ## \hat{e}_r ## wouldn't everything always lie on the horizontal axis if my perspective was the polar coordinate system?
I am confused :/
In the way I like to think about it, the n-tuple representation of a vector space is just a "list" of elements from the field that I have to combine (a.k.a. perform multiplication) with the n vectors in some subset of my vector space, the basis, to result in the particular vector from the vector space I am trying to represent.
So if I have some subset B that is a basis of some vector space V, I can represent the vector λ in V as the list of scalars I have to multiply each basis vector to get λ in V.
If the polar unit vectors ## \hat{e}_r ## and ## \hat{e}_{\theta} ## are a basis to ℝ2, how does that work. I mean IF it works..
If I add the vector (1, π/4) to (1, π/4), I would expect to get (2, π/4). Since both vectors point in the same direction I should get a third vector pointing in the same direction as well. Or does the space get all distorted somehow. Like, does the equation r = θ that looks like a spiral in the cartesian coordinate system looks like a straight line with slope 1 through the origin in the polar coordinate system?
I know that the polar basis vectors rotate with the angle θ, but if the point you're trying to specify is always in the direction of ## \hat{e}_r ## wouldn't everything always lie on the horizontal axis if my perspective was the polar coordinate system?
I am confused :/