IB Mathematics HL—Year 2
Unit 13: Vectors—(Core Topic 5)
(Also: Lines and Planes in Space)
Homework for Unit 13
Lesson 81
15A.1: 3; 15A.2: 1, 2; 15B.1: 1–4; 15B.2: 1, 2; 15C.1: 1, 2; 15C.2:
Free vectors in
1–3. One of the most useful applications of vectors is in coordi-
the plane;
nate geometry through the use of position vectors. We start by
component form
of a vector; defining the coordinate unit vectors and by setting
position vectors
. can
in the plane. unit and
A point in the plane with coordinates
vectors and
be “pointed to” via the vector . The real advantage,
however, is that we may describe geometrical objects (especially
the “linear” ones) by vectors. For example, let , and
let . Then the set of points described by the position
vector , where ranges over the real numbers, is a line
in the plane.
Homework for Unit 13
In nonlinear examples, we still can describe familiar phenomina
in terms of vectors. In the picture below, the graph of the parabola
with graph is given; the position vector points to
an arbitrary point on the graph. The derivative vector points
in the direction of the tangent line.
Lesson 81,
continued
Free vectors
in the plane
The dot product of two coordinate vectors in the plane is defined
purely algebraically,
but has tremendous
geometrical significance.
Thus, let
and
, and then set .
Easy enough? So what does it mean? A diagram, together with the
Law of Cosines, should help:
Lesson 81,
cont’d
The dot product
in 2 dimensions
Homework for Unit 13
Note that , that , and that
. Putting all of this into the Law of Cosines shows
us that
which gives the geometrical significance of the dot product. Note,
in particular, that when the vectors and are perpendicular, then
.
As an application, let’s show why the determinant (or rather its ab-
solute value) of a matrix gives the area “distortion factor” that
we anticipated earlier. Let be the linear
transformation Ê Ê
whose associated matrix is . If and are the usual unit
Lesson 81,
continued vectors, then we see that
Free vectors
in the plane
( call this vector )
( call this vector )
from which we see that carries the unit square to the parallelogram,
as displayed below:
Ì
Homework for Unit 13, cont’d
The image parallelogram has area , as depicted below.
Lesson 81,
cont’d
The determinant
as a scale factor
Now watch this:
Area
This says, finally, that gives the scale factor involved!
Lesson 82 15E.1: 2, 3; 15E.2: 3, 4; 15F: 4, 8, 10; 15G: 4, 5, 7; 15H: 2, 3; 15I: 1, 3, 5
(b), (c); 15J.1: 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11; 15J.2: 3, 4; 15K.1: 1–5, 12–14; 15K.3:
Vectors in three 1–6, 9 10. (This should keep you busy for a while!)
dimensions;
dot and cross (A) MPOS (Vectors), #2, #3, #5, #7 (This is really Algebra II), #8, #9.
products
(B) (Sadler and Thorning, Examination questions, p. 447): #1, #2, #3,
#10, #11, #12, #16, #17.
Summary:
½
dot, or scalar product: If =
½
¾ and = ¾ , then
¿ ¿
Furthermore, if is the angle between and , then
This says in particular that if and are orthogonal (perpen-
dicular), then .
Homework for Unit 13, cont’d
½
Cross or vector product. If =
½
¾ and = ¾ , then
¿ ¿
Lesson 82,
cont’d
Furthermore, if is the angle between and , then is
Summary of dot orthogonal to both and and in the direction as determined
and cross prod- by the right-hand rule. The length of this vector is given by
ucts
which, of course, is just the area of the parallelogram defined by
the vectors and . Perhaps curiously, one has that
(anticommutativity).1
½ ½
Triple vector product If =
½
¾ , = ¾ , and if = ¾ ,
¿ ¿ ¿
then
Furthermore, then the volume of the parallelpiped spanned by
these three vectors is given by
Lesson 83 17A.1: 1 (also find the symmetric forms), 2, 3, 4. (In Problem #4,
Lines in the rather than just finding the speed, start by computing the velocity
plane and in vector of the particle. This is actually very easy: if is the
3-space position vector of a particle in the plane (where represents a time
parameter), then the velocity vector is just . The speed is
simply the magnitude of the velocity vector: . At this
point it’s probably appropriate also to mention that the acceleration
vector is simply the derivative of the velocity vector: .
If, for example, the position vector of a particle in the plane is given
by
then the particle travels along the parabola (can you
see why?).
1 In fact, the cross product is not even associative; rather it satisfies what is called the Jacobi identity: for vectors Ù Ú , and Û, one
has that
Ù Ú Û Ú Û Ù Û Ù Ú
Homework for Unit 13, cont’d
Furthermore, the velocity and acceleration of the particle are given
by
Lesson 83, The graph of this activity is shown below.
cont’d
More lines in
the plane and in
3-space
Of course, the above example really has nothing to do with lines at
all, but I felt that the digression made sense, especially in light of
Problem #4, page 427.
Just for fun: Assume that a particle moves along the right branch
of the hyperbola , and that is given parametrically as
. Find the position vector , the velocity vector , and
the acceleration vector and indicate these below where .
17A.2: 1–3 (also find the symmetric forms), 4–7. 17A.3: 1–4.
Writing a line in either the plane on in 3-space involves essentially the
same idea as that introduced above: specify a fixed point (“pointed
to” by a fixed vector) and then the direction of the line (again, given
by a vector). So, for example, in describing a line in the plane, we let
“point” to a fixed point on the line and let point in the direction
of the line. Then the vector equation of the line is Ê.
Homework for Unit 13, cont’d
E XAMPLE . If
, and if
, then the line
Lesson 83,
cont’d Ê is pictured below:
Still more lines
in the plane and
in 3-space
Therefore the vector equation of this line is
If we write out the individual component equations, we arrive at the
parametric equations for this line (where is the parameter):
Ê
Finally, we may eliminate the parameter and arrive at the symmetric
form of the equation. To do this, write , where
. In
the above example, we have
which says that
In three dimensions, the process is the same. Let’s apply this to Ex-
ample 3 on page 428 of the Haese and Harris book. We are to find
the equation of the line through the point in the direction
of . In fact, let’s find all three forms.
Homework for Unit 13, cont’d
Vector Form: This is simply
Lesson
cont’d
83,
Parametric Form:
Even more lines
in the plane and
in 3-space
Symmetric Form:
E XAMPLE . Suppose we have lines and with equations
½ ¾
Show that these lines intersect and compute the acute angle be-
tween these lines, correct to the nearest degree.
S OLUTION . In finding the point of intersection, it’s best to
rewrite the lines in their parametric forms:
Solving for and simultaneously gives and .
Therefore, the point of intersection is the point .
Next the acute angle formed by these intersecting lines can be
computed as the acute angle formed by the corresponding di-
rection vectors and . We have
that
and to . Æ
This means that the acute angle is approxi-
mately .
Æ
Homework for Unit 13, cont’d
Lesson 84 17B.1: 1–3; 17B. 2: 3, 4 (note that for part (d) you’re just trying to
Miscellaneous determine when is a minimum, where points to
aspects of lines yacht A and points to yacht B), 5; 17B.3: 4–6; 17B.4: 3, 4; 17C: 1,
in the plane and 4–6, 7.
space
(A) MPOS (Vectors) #4, #6.
(B) (Sadler and Thorning, Examination questions, pg 447:) #8.
17D: 1–3 (find the Cartesian form of the equation), 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12,
13, 14, 17, 18; 17E: 1, 2.
Lesson 85
Planes (A) (Sadler and Thorning, Examination questions, pg 447:) #4, #5,
#6, #7, #9.
Just as a line can be defined by specifying a point and a direction, a
plane can be defined by a point and two directions. This gives the
vector equation
where is the position vector for the plane, and points to a given
point on the plane, and where and are the direction vectors. If
we write out the components of this vector equation, we arrive at the
parametric equations for the plane.
E XAMPLE : If we let bea point on the plane , and if direc-
tion vectors = and are given, then we may set =
Homework for Unit 13, cont’d
and so the vector equation of the plane has the form
Lesson 85,
cont’d which breaks down into the individual parametric equations:
Planes
Finding the Cartesian equation of a plane from its vector or paramet-
ric form directly (say by eliminating the parameters) is unnecessarily
difficult. A better—and more geometrical—approach is to notice that
the vector is perpendicular to the plane. This implies that
since the vector is parallel to the plane, then we have the equa-
tion
some people prefer to write this as
Writing this out will yield the Cartesian form of the equation.
E XAMPLE , CONTINUED : We continue with the above example. We
start by finding a normal vector to the plane . Thus, we set
Therefore, since , and since ,
the equation becomes
which reduces to the desired Cartesian equation:
From the above example we can extract the following (nearly) ob-
vious conclusion. Namely, if we have a plane whose Cartesian
equation is , then the vector is a vector
normal to . This observation allows us to compute the acute angle
between any pair of intersecting planes. We flesh this out through an
example:
Homework for Unit 13, cont’d
E XAMPLE : Let be the plane whose Cartesian equation is
(the plane in the above example), and let be the plane whose
equation is . Then the acute angle between and
will be the same as the acute angle between the normal vectors
and Since the acute angle between any two vectors
Lesson 85,
cont’d and is clearly
(do you see why the absolute
value is necessary?), we conclude that the acute angle between and
Lots of planes is
or roughly 32.79 degrees.
I NTERESTING E XERCISE . Here’s a
problem, translated from the 2007 Chi-
nese College Entrance Examination
( ). The right prism depicted
to the right has volume 1, where, in
addition . Æ
Determine the angle between the line
segment and the plane contain-
ing .