Calculating three-dimensional cross products by hand is tedious and error-prone. Whenever you can, you should use technology to do the grunt work for you and focus on the meaning of the results. In this solution, we will use an embedded Sage calculator to calculate the cross product. This same calculator can be used to do other problems.
Given:
\begin{align*}
\vec{A} \amp = \m{\langle 2,4,-1 \rangle}\\
\vec{B} \amp = \N{\langle 10, 25, 20 \rangle}
\end{align*}
.
\(\vec{A}\) and \(\vec{B}\) are defined in the first two lines, and A.cross_product(B)
is the expression to be evaluated. Click Evaluate
to see the result. You’ll have to work out the correct units for yourself.
Try changing the third line to B.cross_product(A)
. What changes?