As usual, the Omniscient Wikipedia does a pretty good job of giving the standard mathematical definition of a "vector":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_space#Definition If the thing fulfills the axioms, it's a vector. Complex numbers do, as well as scalars. On Oct 15, 2010, at 8:56 AM, David Schuller wrote: > On 10/14/10 11:22, Ed Pozharski wrote: >> Again, definitions are a matter of choice.... >> There is no "correct" definition of anything. > > Definitions are a matter of community choice, not personal choice; i.e. a > matter of convention. If you come across a short squat animal with split > hooves rooting through the mud and choose to define it as a "giraffe," you > will find yourself ignored and cut off from the larger community which > chooses to define it as a "pig." > > -- > ======================================================================= > All Things Serve the Beam > ======================================================================= > David J. Schuller > modern man in a post-modern world > MacCHESS, Cornell University > schul...@cornell.edu ^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^`^` Douglas L. Theobald Assistant Professor Department of Biochemistry Mailstop 009 415 South St Brandeis University Waltham, MA 02454-9110 dtheob...@brandeis.edu http://theobald.brandeis.edu/ Office: +1 (781) 736-2303 Fax: +1 (781) 736-2349 ^\ /` /^. / /\ / / /`/ / . /` / / ' ' '
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