Euclidean Space
July 20, 2024
Contents
1 Euclidean Form 1
2 Orthogonality 2
3 Isometric map 2
Definition 0.1. A vector space V (over R) with a Euclidean metric is called
a Euclidean space
1 Euclidean Form
Definition 1.1. Let V be a real vector space and (·, ·) : V × V → R is called
a Euclidean form if it satisfies the following properties:
1. Bilinearity
(v1 + v2 , w) = (v1 , w) + (v2 , w)
(w, v1 + v2 ) = (w, v1 ) + (w, v2 )
c · (v, w) = (c · v, w)
c · (v, w) = (v, c · w)
2. Symmetricity
∀v, w ∈ V : (v, w) = (w, v)
We say that (·, ·) is positive definite if
(v, v) ≥ 0 → (v, v) = 0 ⇐⇒ v = 0
In that case, we call (·, ·) a Euclidean metric
1
2 Orthogonality
Definition 2.1. Let (V, (·, ·)) be an Euclidean Space. We say that vectors
v, w ∈ V are orthogonal if
(v, w) = 0
We denote it by
v⊥w
Definition 2.2. Let e1 , . . . , en be a basis for V. We call {e1 , . . . , en } an
orthonormal basis if
1. Elements are mutually orthogonal
∀ei ̸= ej : (ei , ej ) = 0
2. || ei ||= 1
Orthonormal bases exist (based on Gram-Schmidt theorem)
Definition 2.3. Let (V, (·, ·)) be a hermitian space. If W ≤ V is a complex
subspace, we define the orthogonal complement of W by
W ⊥ := {v ∈ V| (v, w) = 0 ∀w ∈ W} = {v ∈ V |v⊥W}
W ⊥ is a vector subspace (W ⊥ ≤ V)
Proof. • v1 , v2 ∈ W ⊥ : v1 + v2 ∈ W ⊥
• c ∈ C, v ∈ W ⊥ : c · v ∈ W ⊥
⊥
W
| ⊕
{zW } = V
direct sum
Proof. • W ∩ W ⊥ = {0}
• ∀v ∈ V : ∃w ∈ W, w′ ∈ W ⊥ : v = w + w′
3 Isometric map
Definition 3.1. Let (V, (·, ·)) be a Euclidean space. A linear map T : V → V
is called isometric if it preserves the inner product
(T v, T w) = (v, w)
