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This answer to another question discusses using geometric algebra to find a rotation of an arbitrary angle between two vectors. It involves constructing a versor $R$ from a normalized blade $\hat{B}$ by taking the exponential of it scaled by the angle of rotation: $R=\exp(−\hat{B}θ/2)$.

What is $R$ when expanded, if $\hat{B}=\alpha+ \beta e_1+\gamma e_2+\delta e_1e_2$?

My guess is it would be similar to $\exp(\alpha x+\beta y) = e^{ax+by}=e^{ax}e^{ay}$, giving $R=e^{\alpha}e^{\beta e_1}e^{\gamma e_2}e^{\delta e_1e_2}$. This doesn't seem correct, though, for two reasons:

  1. the geometric product is not commutative (but addition is) so it seems strange to assume that $a^{b+c}=a^ba^c$
  2. the result is no longer the sum of products with basis elements $e_1,e_2,e_1e_2$


What is the correct way to carry out the exponentiation of a blade?


Edit: I found this answer to a related question just now, and it seems to suggests that $\exp(\hat{B}\theta)=\cos{\theta}+\hat{B}\sin{\theta}$ when $\hat{B}$ is a normalized bivector (or blade). This suggests to me that, if I correctly set my example blade to $\hat{B}=\alpha e_1e_2+\beta e_1e_3+\gamma e_2e_3$ (in 3D now instead of 2D, so I still have multiple terms), then $R$ becomes the multivector $R=\cos{(-\theta/2)}+\alpha \sin{(-\theta/2)}e_1e_2+\beta \sin{(-\theta/2)}e_1e_3+\gamma \sin{(-\theta/2)}e_2e_3$
Is this correct?

jkutilek
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1 Answers1

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Your example:

$$\hat{B} = \alpha + \beta e_1 + \gamma e_2 + \delta e_1 e_2$$

is not a blade, but is a multivector. Blades are completely antisymmetric sums (i.e. wedge products). For example, the wedge of two vectors $a, b$ is

$$ a \wedge b = \frac{1}{2} (a b - b a) = \sum_{i < j} \begin{vmatrix} a_i & a_j \\ b_i & b_j \end{vmatrix} e_i e_j $$

In $R^3$ this bivector, a blade, squares to a negative number (the negative of the squared area of the parallogram formed by $a,b$). Because of this, it's possible to define an exponential of a bivector using power series and it behaves exactly like a complex exponential.

It's not easy to see from the coordinate expansion above, but every wedge product can be expressed as a product of two normal vectors, say $a \wedge b = c d$, where $c \cdot d = 0$. Since normal vectors anticommute, this means that $B^2 = -c^2 d^2$. In Euclidean spaces, this is always a negative number, but even generally, this square is always a scalar, so an exponential series representation is simple to construct.

Not every bivector is a blade. For example in $R^4$, the following grade 2 multivector (i.e. bivector)

$$B = \alpha(e_1 \wedge e_2) + \beta(e_3 \wedge e_4)$$

cannot be written as a product of normal vectors. A consequence of this is:

$$e^B \ne e^{\alpha(e_1 \wedge e_2)} e^{\beta(e_3 \wedge e_4)}.$$

Any quantum mechanics book covering spin operators in detail has the formula for $e^{A + B}$ (which I forget off the top of my head). It has three factors $e^A$, $e^B$, and a cross term. Only if $A$ and $B$ commute is the exponential of a sum the product of the exponentials.

In your edit, you asked about a normalized bivector in $R^3$ of the form

$$\hat{B} = \alpha e_1 e_2 + \beta e_2 e_3 + \gamma e_3 e_1.\qquad (1)$$

You computed the exponential of that correctly. Paraphrasing what you wrote, that exponential is:

$$e^{\hat{B} \theta/2} = \cos(\theta/2) + \hat{B} \sin(\theta/2).$$

This is what you wrote, with $\hat{B}$ expanded in coordinates. In $R^3$ any bivector is a 2-blade, so can be written as a wedge product, or as a product of normal vectors. An example:

$$\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}(e_{1} e_{2} + e_{2} e_{3} + e_{3} e_{1}) = \frac{ e_1 + e_2 - 2 e_3 }{\sqrt{6}} \frac{ e_2 - e_1 }{\sqrt{2}} = \frac{ e_3 - e_2 }{\sqrt{2}} \frac{ 2 e_1 - e_2 - e_3 }{\sqrt{6}}$$

These are factorizations of the form $\hat{B} = c d$, where $c \cdot d = 0$, and

$$\hat{B}^2 = c d c d = -d c c d = - c^2 d^2 = -1.$$

We see that this normalized $\hat{B}$ behaves just like an imaginary, so the Euler's $cos + i\, sin$ relationship follows.

More generally, to show that any normalized $R^3$ bivector behaves like an imaginary, we can write the bivector as the dual of a normalized vector:

$$\hat{B} = I \hat{n},$$

where $I = e_1 e_2 e_3$ is a unit trivector (also called the $R^3$ pseudoscalar). For the general $R^3$ $\hat{B}$ in (1) above, this is:

$$\hat{B} = \alpha e_1 e_2 + \beta e_2 e_3 + \gamma e_3 e_1 = I (\alpha e_3 + \beta e_1 + \gamma e_2),$$

showing that $\hat{B}$ is dual to the unit vector with direction cosines $(\beta, \gamma, \alpha)$. You can show that $I$ commutes with all grades, and that $I^2 = -1$, so

$$\hat{B}^2 = I \hat{n} I \hat{n} = I^2 \hat{n}^2 = (-1)(1).$$

Again Euler's $e^{i\theta} = cos(\theta) + i\, sin(\theta)$ relationship follows for $i = \hat{B}$.

Peeter Joot
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  • Ah, so a blade is purely the result of wedge products of vectors, and so will always have terms of the same grade. I think I am still unsure exactly what the difference between k-vectors and k-blades are. Your example bivector B looks like a normal vector since it is the sum of vectors. What makes it a bivector? And since I am interested in finding R in terms of the input vectors' elements, it seems like I need to learn more about the process of defining an exponential as a power series. Is finding the perpendicular vectors c and d part of this process? – jkutilek Mar 24 '18 at 17:30
  • Sorry. I must have been pretty tired and wrote +'s instead of wedges. Fixed the typos above. If a multivector has only grade 2 elements, it is a bivector. If that bivector can be written as a wedge is it a 2-blade too. – Peeter Joot Mar 25 '18 at 02:21
  • thanks, that makes more sense. Can you show how to use a power series to construct R in terms of my corrected blade example in 3D? Is the trig equation I found in the related question correct? – jkutilek Mar 26 '18 at 01:46
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    The exponential of that bivector $B$ actually does simplify to $\exp(\alpha e_1\wedge e_2)\exp(\beta e_3\wedge e_4)$, because $(e_1\wedge e_2)(e_3\wedge e_4)=(e_3\wedge e_4)(e_1\wedge e_2)$. You might also want to mention hyperbolic functions, for $\exp A$ when $A^2$ is positive; though that follows easily from power series. – mr_e_man Dec 10 '18 at 01:43